Taste of Your Own Medicine

While technology may be considered as dangerous and have a 'will' of its own, many technologies are beneficial to human life. Of course, I'm not referring to temper-inducing video games, but rather medical technology. The use of technology in medicine has, as I have observed, grown exponentially. Today, we can keep people alive who would otherwise die in an earlier time period. The ICU (Intensive Care Units) rooms have some of the most amazing life-saving equipment. For example, the ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenator) machine will take over the functions of both the heart and lungs, when those organs have severe trauma, while these organs recover (Medscape). Then, there exists the dialysis machine which cleans out blood, supplementing damaged (or missing) kidneys. Next, the basic of all machines, the life monitors, a technology taken for granted. These provide the data doctors and nurses work with--blood pressure, heartbeat rate, etc. And, of course, don't forget about the ambulances, including air-care.

Now, some of the machines often only delay the inevitable. All humans die and age--even computers do as they age with time and become outdated and may eventually crash for good or be thrown out (How's that for death?). Some may see the ICU as being somewhat unpractical, such as using it to keep a 90-year old on indefinite life support. It's costly, and it takes away from that persons last years of life (Atul Gawande, "Letting Go..."). In other words, is holding back certain death ethical? Of more importantly, is the technology being used to do so ethical?

However, at the same time, is not advances in technology accounting for medical emergencies. With new technology, we live in a safer, yet dangerous world. With our understanding of viruses, we can label the movie "Contagion" as fantasy. Yet, at the same time, millions die in technological accidents--transportation (automobiles specifically), construction, etc. In some cases, new technology is also impeding medical technology. In an article from Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, entitled "Cyber War has Begun", a review is given of cyber warfare and new methods of murder are available--hacking. One can theorically hack into hospital systems and cancel life-support operations "before the medical staff knows anything is wrong." Heard of sabotaging breaks? How about doing so miles away via computer? Cars have computers, in fact multiple ones in lieu of having specific tasks (fuel injection, braking, etc.). Sick stuff right? now obviously, these hackers are at fault, but is society also at fault for enabling this and making humanity so vulnerable? Technology, like many other things, has its pros and cons--life and death.