Finding Meaning In Medical Innovation
How do you define medical innovation, what does it mean to you personally?
As a filmmaker I’ve recently focused my lens on the medical community. Most of the chatter we hear about health is focused on the current healthcare debate. But I’m more interested in the health and care of communities, not the debate in which the patient generally has no voice and is usually completely absent from the conversation.
How can focusing on the art and science of medical innovation bring about solutions to some of the most vexing healthcare challenges facing patients? How can we more effectively focus on preventive care, as well as treatments, and standards that have direct impact for patients at the bedside? These are the ideas and questions I’ve been grappling with.
As I’ve traveled the country interviewing patients, families, and experts from around the world, I’ve asked them to share their thoughts on these ideas.
In collecting their healthcare journeys and stories, I’ve found the concept of innovation to be constantly evolving, and to rely heavily upon the shared knowledge and ideas of others. In this spirit, I invite you on a common quest for understanding and healing. Coming together as a community of care, we have the power to transform healthcare in this country and around the world.
In the comments section below I’ve asked friends and collaborators to contribute their answers to the question – what does medical innovation mean to you personally? I hope you’ll also share your stories and ideas with us by contributing your voice…
“Innovation is not necessarily a ‘result,’ but the change in perception that prepares for disruption. By nature, we’re quite comfortable with the Known. We protect tradition; we carefully guard the borders we’ve created, both visible and invisible. The mystery is that while Innovation lives within the same borders we do, it must be ignited by something on the outside. Innovation isn’t inherently good or bad. Innovation is an always unruly, sometimes elegant reminder of Life — which cannot be contained, and begins and ends outside all borders.”
- Bruce Wagner, Author
“The act of taking the existing set of laws and theories that are the basis of modern medicine and acknowledging that our understanding is incomplete. Subsequently, taking an intelligent and thoughtful hypothesis, albeit conflicting with dogmatic medical knowledge, and studying it using the experimental method as though it is absolutely within the realm of possibility.”
- Dr. Blake Gurfein, Neuroscientist
“A new technique or procedure like the pacemaker, the bypass surgery that is now commonplace, or the titanium knees and hips setting off security bells at airports all over the world.”
- Patti Black, Retail Store Owner
“Any new development that improves patient care (new medications), helps doctors care for patients (electronic medical records), and lowers the cost of delivery.”
- Dr. Todd Spector, Family Medicine
“Medical innovation is not about solving old problems in new ways. I don’t even think it’s about solving problems at all… I think it’s about using the creative process to bring into being a state of health and wellbeing that hadn’t necessarily existed before. It’s about using ingenuity to achieve societal dreams, whether or not we currently think it’s possible to do so.”
- David Larson, Medical Student
as a family doctor, innovation starts with the small everyday clinical needs,problems and questions. for example, is this a virus or bacteria or allergies causing this patient’s cough? i see hundreds of patients coming in with respiratory tract infections. we have 2 basic tests…one for strep throat and one for influenza. for the other zillion causes, our approach to their treatment is based on inexact methods from the past. we are eyeballing it, without focused and effective treatments. technology as basic as an in office test that would classify a secretion sample into various subtypes, would help direct our care and help prevent dangerous overuse of antibiotics.
all doctors should be researchers and all patients everyday are their data. the research is just as much in the clinics as in the laboratories. we must tap into the laboratories of the medical office itself. we must retrain doctors to think like researchers.
One again, your articles is very good.thank you!very much.
Great article Thank
you so much!
Medical innovation appreciates that wellness is just as much a product of the body politic as it is a product of the individual. With an emphasis on cultural well-being, education about biomedical practices and products creates a community of supporters, and later, a community of contributors. Change the method by which ideas are formed, fostered, and nurtured, and the necessary medical advancements will follow. Create a demand for medical innovation through education.
Medical innovation is often suppressed by the medical and insurance world as experimental or nonsense when it is clear that people are benefiting. This makes such treatments available only to those with substantial savings or willing to mortgage their future. Marker tests, targeted drugs and natural treatments that cannot be patented will someday make the current cancer treatments look like treatment by witch doctors and leeches.
Medical innovation should focus on seamless flow of information between professionals AND patients. Systems thus far have been contained within organisational boundaries, and poor availability of key clinical information at points of care lead to large number of clinical errors and, not to mention, leave patients in the dark about their care. I have pioneered a web based clinical information system that puts patients in the centre of information workflow (www.clinicyou.com).
Medical innovation can be any new idea, plan, technique, philosophy, or instrument whose successful implementation can lead to a better understanding of how to deal with, treat, prevent or cure any condition of dis—ease.
Medical innovation is curing cancer without the use of deadly chemicals.
Medical innovation is understanding the human genome to the point we can treat diseases by targeting only the affected areas and not the unaffected/healthy areas as well.
Medical innovation would be treating medical care as a social need, and not a money making proposition.
Marc, living with cancer
For me, as a mom, “medical innovation” means not taking “no” for an answer.
It means staying up late at night deciphering obscure medical journal articles. It means keeping a list of 20+ doctors in your planner at all times. It means traveling whatever distance is necessary to get the best care you can. It means turning your anger into energy. It means following your “gut” when you know there’s an answer somewhere. It means finding the scientists and doctors who are willing to take a chance and then working hard to get the money they need to do it.
Medical innovation means forcing yourself to hope when you’re scared, allowing yourself to dream when most of your dreams end up as nightmares, and pushing yourself to never, ever, ever quit no matter how many times you question yourself.
- Debbie Vaughan, Mom to a wonderful boy with a terrible disease
Debbie. I hear you and I’m with you as are many people here. That’s why I started Lybba. To be a place for us to meet and exchange views. Thank you for sharing yours.
Medical Innovation is anything that brings us one step closer to more equal & accessible delivery of healthcare in America & around the world.
- Patrick McGovern, Lybba
Medical innovation means stem cells that can become any part of the human body. Medical innovation means surgeries conducted remotely. Medical innovation means an end to cancer.
- Alex Wolf, Law Student
Medicine that is outside the box. More accessible information, more immediate and targeted information.
- Wonder Serra, Producer