Technology and Medicine :: Exploratory Essays

Technology and Medicine Technology has had a great impact on society when it comes to medicine. Medical technology has been around since the cave man began using rocks as tools to perform trephening. Since then there has been many new advancements in medicine due to technology. From painless needles to robots used for surgeries technology is around to stay. Painless needles are one way technology is improving society. Needles are always scaring young children and even adults. Now with the new painless needle pediatricians can give vaccinations pain free. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology call theses new needles micro needles. [1] They are made from silicon, metal, glass or biodegradable polymer. Theses needles are 500 times smaller then ordinary hypodermic needles, which are too small to irritate nerve endings. These new needles will consist of 400 embedded micro needles will be glued to a patch that will gently puncture the skin. Now with this new technology society can have pain free shots. Technology in terms of medicine has also increased the life expectancy of the average person. With new technological advancements in surgeries, medicines and treatments the average life expectancy is still on the increase. A recent study shows that the average life span for 2004 of a United States Citizen is 77.4 years old. This has increased significantly from 1900 where the average lifespan for a male was 48.2 and for the female 51.5. Thanks to technology we can now live longer. Technology has also helped medicine with the use of robots. At the Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Florida, Jeff Lannigan oversees 1,300 prescriptions a day. [2] That is a huge amount of prescriptions. Now he has a new kind of help. Spencer is a one million dollar robot that dispenses prescriptions at speedy rates. It takes Spencer three and a half hours to do what it took pharmacists 24 hours to do. This new technology also eliminates the room for human error. This means that people will have the right medication every time. If you are a customer waiting for a prescription than this technology will defiantly better society. Some people say that this new technology will hurt society because it will eliminate jobs for pharmacists. This is not true. The article says, â€Å"Instead of spending the whole day dispensing medicines, pharmacists have time to do what they’re trained to do—take care of patients.