FIVE PHASES OF MEDICINE

Phase Description 1. Do nothing Get hurt or ill, and you’re as good as dead. You shudder at the words “There is nothing we

can do for you!” Average lifespan for folks, 30’s. If you’re lucky (or wealthy), you may make it into your 40’s or even reach the ripe old age of 50.

2. Cut it Diseased or damaged limb or body part, chop it off or cut it out surgically. I still remember when people in my grandparents generation called doctors, butchers.

3. Replace it When something is kaput, you replace it—using regenerative medicine, such as stem cell therapy (e.g. for bone marrow transplants or even for growing new teeth) and bioprinters to make new ones.

4. Heal it Envision a future with self-healing microbes (based on nanotechnology) in the blood and tissue that detect when a body part is dangerously ill and deploys repair drones to fix them. There is no need to to cut it off or replace it, you just fix it. And perhaps with DNA profiling, we’ll be able to tell what a person is predisposed to and provide proactive treatments.

5. Eradicate it There could come a time, when with technology (and G-d’s guiding hand), that we can eradicate most disease. Yes, hard to imagine and with diseases that adapt and morph into other strains, it would be hard to do—but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Copyright 2013 By Andy Blumenthal