Advances Available Through The Use Of Technology example essay topic

Did you give your friends valentines and little heart-shaped candies on Valentine's Day? Do you turn on the radio to hear a guy singing about his broken heart? The heart is much more than candy and songs. It is a puzzle, and it has taken man many years to try and fit the pieces together.

Each year more medical technology is discovered, and more pieces are added. Over the years doctors and researchers continue to study the heart in hopes of better understanding how the pieces fit. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary the medical study of the heart and its diseases is called cardiology (Cardiology). Since the study of the heart began, remarkable technological advances have been made, and future technological advances promise an even more relentless pace of technological advances. Those who work in the field of cardiology include doctors, surgeons, and nurses. A doctor or surgeon must obtain a medical degree, and study for several years in cardiology.

Nurses are required to have a degree in nursing, and usually some additional training in the study of cardiac nursing. These two groups use many skills and technology everyday to treat sick patients with heart problems. They must first diagnose the problem, and then attempt to correct the problem. Often technology plays a very important part in diagnosing and correcting the problem. In her article "The Beat goes on", Adrienne Drapkin explains how cardiac technology began with an invention that some call the most important discovery in the history of physical diagnosis, the stethoscope. With the invention of the stethoscope, doctors began to look at and study the heart in a new light (Drapkin, para 1).

This was just the first of several innovations still used today in some form or another to study and treat the heart. According to Dean Jankins the next major invention was the electrocardiogram (EKG). The electrical activity of the human heart could be recorded by the capillary electrometer without opening the chest to expose the heart (Jankins, para 4). The discoveries and inventions of technological advances continue at an extraordinary rate. Today, many technological advances are used in treating the heart.

The stethoscope continues to be a basic tool used for diagnosing problems. The EKG also continues to be used on a regular basis as a diagnostic device. Described at the IPRO web site is another often-used procedure used today is heart catheterization. A soft, hollow tube is inserted through either the groin or arm and placed near the heart to see any blocked areas inside the heart.

This procedure would have been unheard of only a few years ago (IPRO). One of the most life-saving advances available through the use of technology is the ability to operate on the heart. Surgery is often used if the heart has been damaged, the doctor must perform surgery to either repair of replace the heart in order for the patient to live. This is very dangerous and sometimes fatal. When the heart is extremely damaged and unable to be repaired, a transplant may be necessary. This is where technology is vital, and without it, the patient would not have a chance to live.

In some cases, the patient's body rejects the transplanted heart, and the patient dies. In recent discoveries human DNA has been used to determine the key to human genetic make-up. Scientists have used this technology to clone animals. If this study continues to be such a success, we will be well on our way to understanding and eventually treating diseases that affect mankind. The scientific products of the human genome project will include a resource of genomic maps and DNA sequence information that will provide detailed information about the structure, organization, and characteristics of a person. Statistics from the National Human Genome Research Institute indicates that in the next 15 to 20 years the Human Genome Project will develop tools to identify the genes involved in both rare and common diseases.

This study and others like it have opened the door to endless possibilities for the future. Now that we have genetic maps, we also have the ability for genetic engineering, and the ability to clone any or all of a human being. This offers millions of possibilities for our future, but especially in the area of healthcare (Dixon, para. 1). By using this new technology, a new heart could be grown from the patient's own cells. Since the cloned embryo is a near genetic twin of the patient, the transplanted tissues would not be targeted as foreign by the patient's immune system.

This would reduce the potential that the patient's body would reject the heart, and give the patient a better chance at survival. This technique would be vastly superior to relying on organ transplants from other people. The supply would be unlimited, so there would be no waiting lists. The tissue or organ would have the sick person's original DNA; the patient would not have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their life, as is now required after transplants. With this DNA technology, scientists could grow any organ needed by a patient whether it a heart, lung, liver or kidney. If we take this technology one step further, we could possibly eliminate the need for surgery except in very rare situations.

The patient would receive cells that have been harvested previously. The entire structure of cells is transplanted into the wound site, where the cells replicate, reorganize and form new tissue. David Mooney's featured article in Scientific America explains that the concept of tissue engineering and growing organs is possible, and not just in Science fiction. Various television programs and movies have pictured individual organs or whole people (or aliens) growing from a few isolated cells in a vat of some powerful nutrient. Tissue engineering does not yet rival these fictional presentations, but a glimpse of the future has already arrived. The creation of tissue for medical use is already a fact, to a limited extent, in hospitals across the U.S. (Mooney 1).

Indeed, evidence abounds that it is at least theoretically possible to engineer large, complex organs such as livers, kidneys, breasts, bladders and intestines, all of which include many different kinds of cells. The proof can be found in any expectant mother's womb, where a small group of undifferentiated cells finds the way to develop into a complex individual with multiple organs and tissues with vastly different properties and functions. I foresee a time when at birth everyone's embryonic stem cells that contain their genetic make-up are stored in a medical facility much like we store blood today. Each person would be assigned a Social Security Number at birth, very similar to what we have today. This number would identify our genetic materials for later use. This DNA could be used as medicine for each person as needed.

If organ cloning were taking place today every hospital could have their own laboratory to grow clones. The growing of laboratory-cloned organs would take weeks or months. Scientists would use the DNA to program a computer microchip with the genetic code into the patient. The microchip would have the complete program for growing or repairing the defective organ. A complete "recipe" for growing or repairing the damage of an organ would be stored into the small microchip. This microchip would then be implanted into the patient and the program would complete the process.

The patient would begin to heal their selves. This procedure could be used before an organ deteriorated so badly that a transplant would be needed. This would eliminate the need for heart transplants or surgery needed to repair the heart. As technology continues to develop at an astonishing rate, the future of cardiology holds endless possibilities. Each year technology advances are more exciting and is bound only by our imagination.

The future of technology promises us even more remarkable discoveries. We continue to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, but there continues to be more and more technology. The possibility that one day we can heal ourselves may no longer be Science Fiction, but a possibility.