#startrek #medical
Medicine and cyberspace at the brink of singularity
Posts tagged startrek
Best graduation present ever: #startrek #medical caduceus designed and #3Dprinted by @avataris. read the article about it here: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/16021/1/print-your-own-look
This is a picture of the holographic doctor from Star Trek Voyager. He is looking at a computer. He is a computer looking at a computer. I think in this episode his operating system was corrupted and he was developing Alzheimer-like symptoms. How many computers are looking at computers in our world today? Probably a lot. I’ll be posting many more pics of Star Trek doctors in the near future.
Computer Doctors
Regard the imagined clinic of the future, its soft pastels, the gentle curves of its computer casings:
“A visit to the doctor in the future is likely to resemble a computer game, for computers will be greatly involved in medical care.”
It mirrors the aesthetic perfection of the sick bay of the Enterprise of Star Trek: Next Generation. Did the author imagine the videogame analogy to hold for both the physician and the patient? I hope so, because health interactions are best when physician and patient participate equally, and the same is true for multi-player videogames. You can sense an anticipation of the minimization of the role of the physician. In the last paragraph,
“Finally, the computer will dispense drugs and prescribe treatment, but a doctor will be present to discuss its results if the patient wishes.”
As technology affords patients with tools to allow them to assess and control their health on their own (to varying degrees), the physician’s role will be more and more of a counselor and translator in the health process, filling in where the technology lacks, and only when and how the patient desires.
—Image from unknown magazine, posted in a tweet by @kirthine
