#1 The Rubella Vaccine Research Team
#3 A Woman Tries On A Portable Respirator
The World Economic Forum notes that a jaw-dropping 4.5 billion people (just over half of the world population at the time of writing) lack vital access to essential healthcare services. Furthermore, there is expected to be a whopping 11 million health worker shortage by the year 2030.
However, the WEF posits that artificial intelligence may actually help to bridge that massive gap. Essentially, the hope is that AI may, over time, lead to a democratization in healthcare.
According to the WEF, AI technologies are already helping doctors in numerous ways. For instance, aiding them in triaging patients, detecting early signs of disease, and spotting fractures. Though that's just the tip of the iceberg.
That being said, healthcare is an industry that has “below average” adoption of rapidly developing AI tech.
#4 Early Dialysis Machines In Germany
#6 Plague Doctor Had To Wear Bizarre Uniforms
According to the recent WEF white paper, ‘The Future of AI-Enabled Health: Leading the Way,’ “AI digital health solutions hold the potential to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes globally.” But you don’t need to look into the far future to expect positive changes. Medical professionals are already getting results.
According to the WEF, there are many examples of AI tech already making a difference in medicine. For example, new AI software, trained by two British universities on a dataset of 800 brain scans of stroke patients, and trialed on 2,000 patients, was found to be twice as accurate as professionals in examining scans. Moreover, the software also identified the timescale within which the stroke happened.
“For the majority of strokes caused by a blood clot, if a patient is within 4.5 hours of the stroke happening, he or she is eligible for both medical and surgical treatments. Up to 6 hours, the patient is also eligible for surgical treatment, but after this time point, deciding whether these treatments might be beneficial becomes tricky, as more cases become irreversible. So it’s essential for doctors to know both the initial onset time, as well as whether a stroke could be reversed,” consultant neurologist Dr. Paul Bentley told the Health Tech Newspaper.
#7 Tapeworms Were Prescribed For Weight Loss
#8 Guillaume Duchenne Forces A Patient To Laugh
What’s more, the WEF explains that some of the other major breakthroughs in AI in the medical industry include tech that is able to:
- Spot more bone fractures than humans can
- Assess ambulance needs
- Detect early signs of over 1,000 diseases
- Guide healthcare decisions via clinical chatbots
- Enhance traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine while protecting cultural heritage
- Speed up healthcare admin tasks, giving medical professionals more time and energy to spend focusing on their patients
Of course, it’s not just in AI where progress is being made.
For instance, Sermo points out that doctors and medical students “increasingly use” virtual reality for various purposes, such as simulation training, surgical rehearsals, pain management, and distraction mechanisms.
Furthermore, telemedicine has gone mainstream, making healthcare more accessible to patients who may be hard to reach.
#11 A Bizarre Looking Aviation Eye Test
This 1960 photograph captures a strange experiment at the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine. Dr. G. H. Byford is shown wearing a contact lens fitted with a miniature lamp while standing beneath a rotating optokinetic drum. The setup was designed to study the involuntary reflex movements of the eye and understand how visual illusions could affect a pilot's perception and stability during flight.
#12 An Early X-Ray Machine
Other medical tech improvements include advances in wearable devices, usually smart wristwatches, that track important patient data. As an example, wearable devices that “continuously collect” electrocardiogram, skin impedance, temperature, and patient activity data can “predict heart failure exacerbations within a 10-day window, improving early intervention.”
Meanwhile, the field of regenerative medicine is expanding, especially in the areas of gene therapy, cell therapy, and tissue engineering. That’s on top of advances in 3D printing technology, for instance, used to create bone scaffolds, joint tissue implants, anatomical models, compound tablets, etc.
Sermo also notes that there have been advances in the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology, as well as robotics. The latter allows minimally invasive procedures with greater surgical precision. On top of that, other upsides include smaller incisions, as well as faster recovery times.
#14 A Lithotomy Crutch From The 1890s That Was Used For Bladder Surgery
We’d like to hear your thoughts, dear Pandas. Which of these old-timey photos impressed you the most and why? What recent advances in science are you most grateful for?
If you happen to work in medicine or any related fields, what progress in medical tech do you personally hope will happen in the near future?
#17 A Military Casualty's Brainwaves Are Measured In 1940 At Sutton Emergency Hospital
#18 Women Use A Surgical Dressing Stretching Machine In 1915
#19 Medical Instruments Being Waterproofed For Military Use
#20 Plastic Man Was Used To Simulate Human Radiation Exposures By Chemist, Wright H. Langham In 1959
