I'm going to park this Face book post here until I work on it and deepen the historical parts.
There are some interesting things about having been in healthcare for a few decades+ .
I'll skip my frustrations and anger about the politics and finance of caring for humans, and look at positives.
I'll skip my frustrations and anger about the politics and finance of caring for humans, and look at positives.
The things we can do to save lives are far more effective and nuanced than they were even in the 80's. We have better equipment...better monitors , better ventilators, more specific testing modalities, better understanding of many diseases, even though it is surely a work in progress. There is so much we are only now barely beginning to discover about autoimmune diseases, for instance, about how to tailor care very specifically to individual genomes.
I no longer need to carry my own tiny screwdriver to adjust the gain on a cardiac monitor. The advances in imaging and digital manipulation are extraordinary...(I honest to god remember crying when I took a patient into our first MRI and saw the gorgeous pictures of his tumor....and what we can see now is hundreds of iterations more accurate and clear)
it is possible to develop 3d pictures that allow surgeons to visualize up front what they will encounter in real life. Very soon, we'll be able to grow body parts. Really.
it is possible to develop 3d pictures that allow surgeons to visualize up front what they will encounter in real life. Very soon, we'll be able to grow body parts. Really.
But perspective:
One of my (many) grandfathers was an obstetrical surgeon. He graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1902, and went on to a very distinguished career including being an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for a time.
(I think I might have learned to read by a combination of the NEJM and the obituaries from Henry Illinois, but that's a whole other story
)
One of my (many) grandfathers was an obstetrical surgeon. He graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1902, and went on to a very distinguished career including being an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for a time.
(I think I might have learned to read by a combination of the NEJM and the obituaries from Henry Illinois, but that's a whole other story
)
My step-grandfather Stephen was trained in a very different time: when one was expected to be able to read medical literature in different languages...in his case, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German and French. A time when surgery was just developing and expanding ,when so often one could only offer comfort and common sense.
I can only imagine now how elated he must have been when antibiotics were discovered and made available in the 1930's, how his practice must have changed...how many women's lives were saved. Let's just think about that paradigm shift ...suddenly people no longer inevitably die from bacterial infections, but are miraculously saved with an injection of penicillin.
Hell, when he was in training, blood types were only just being discovered in1901!
Hell, when he was in training, blood types were only just being discovered in1901!
Thanks to Abraar Quraishi for letting me meander around and reminisce while we were talking this evening.
I am reminded about why I keep working in critical care...it's so fascinating, and so much in flux. There is always something to learn. There are always resonances of the past, recognitions of how lucky we are, how recent our innovations and understandings, how hopeful we are for more paradigm shifts.
No comments:
Post a Comment