Introduction
You have been feeling unwell lately, with a persistent cough that has bothered you for weeks. However, you have been dismissing it as a common cold. Additionally, you've been experiencing chest pain, but you attributed it to a muscle strain. Unfortunately, these symptoms could be indicative of a much more severe issue, such as lung cancer. Concerned about your health, you schedule an appointment with your doctor.
At your visit, your doctor confirms your fears and recommends further tests and treatments. However, as you discuss the potential treatment options, you realize that the cost is beyond what you can afford. As you grapple with the financial barriers that can hinder access to life-saving care, you weigh up your next steps.
The complexities of medical technology are a subject of much debate in the medical profession, with physicians and researchers divided. This article will address the medical disparities in the healthcare system and how we may work toward an age where everyone will have equal access to health services.
What is Medical Technology?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines medical technology as "the application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of life." Such inventions have come a long way in recent years and have revolutionized how medical professionals diagnose and treat illnesses and conditions. But as these cutting-edge technologies advance, advantages and difficulties arise.
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Innovation
When artificial intelligence (AI) technologies prove to be operating well, they can complete tasks more quickly and efficiently than most individuals can, giving humans the chance to utilize time and resources to tackle other complex challenges in medicine.
But as always, there are disadvantages regarding the usage of AI in medicine. A study reported by researchers in 2019 discovered that some healthcare systems rely on a racially biased algorithm, mainly towards Black people, despite its original intent to identify and support all patients with urgent health needs. The algorithm assigns lower "risk scores" to Black patients than White patients even though their age, socioeconomic status, and severity of illness are similar, ultimately resulting in a lower quality of care.
Nicol Turner-Lee, Ph.D., a sociologist and director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., explains how individuals with their morals, values, and assumptions about the world design algorithms, which may have hidden or explicit biases that affect how AI models are developed and function. These enduring worries about equity, privacy, and trust are prompting experts and researchers to realize that ethical innovation requires a thorough understanding of human behavior to improve these flawed systems.
Considering the Ethics of Medical Advancements
Medical advancements will continue to evolve rapidly, bringing up the positive and negative aspects and how they may affect medical professionals and their patients. However, medical innovations bring about difficulties. These dilemmas will likely grow as people and groups with varying viewpoints and experiences clash over the direction of health and medicine for future years.
One of the most pressing ethical challenges in medical advancements is the issue of affordability and accessibility. While medical innovations can improve the quality of life for many people worldwide, they are often expensive and inaccessible. This problem raises questions about the fairness of healthcare systems. For example, the high costs of medical treatments establish healthcare disparities between socioeconomic groups, resulting in people having the inability to receive the care they need, ultimately leading to serious health outcomes.
An analysis of the ethical implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical technology and biomedical researchers was published by the BMC Medical Ethics journal, highlighting the allocation of resources, scientific responsibilities, and the limitations of the standards of biomedical devices and personal protective equipment (PPE) as primary concerns that these researchers faced. The pandemic caught everyone off guard and challenged all fields of knowledge, from medicine and science to politics and engineering. The article calls for prioritizing interdisciplinary methods for research and the need for more forums to foster opportunities to address these disparities.
The Future of Medical Technology
Over the years, it has become evident that medicine depends on biomedical research and innovation, but their contribution to creating effective policies and standards remains modest. While medical advancements can improve the quality of life for patients, they continue to raise ethical questions, from affordability and accessibility to reliability and fairness. As new technologies and treatments emerge, we must consider the complexities of these innovations and ensure that we use them responsibly. By doing so, we can apply medical advancements in a fair and equal manner to enhance millions of lives across the globe.
Works Cited
Abrams, Zara. “The Promise and Challenges of AI.” Apa.org, 1 Nov. 2021, www.apa.org/monitor/2021/11/cover-artificial-intelligence. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
El Haj, Alicia. “The Grand Challenges of Medical Technology.” Frontiersin.org, 15 July 2020, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmedt.2020.00001/full#h3. Accessed 27 Jan. 2024.
Lo, Bernard, et al. “Fundamentals of Medical Ethics — a New Perspective Series.” The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 389, no. 25, 21 Dec. 2023, pp. 2392–2394, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2308472. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
Maccaro, Alessia, et al. “Biomedical Engineering and Ethics: Reflections on Medical Devices and PPE during the First Wave of COVID-19.” BMC Medical Ethics, vol. 22, no. 1, 25 Sept. 2021, https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-021-00697-1. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
Obermeyer, Ziad, et al. “Dissecting Racial Bias in an Algorithm Used to Manage the Health of Populations.” Science, vol. 366, no. 6464, 25 Oct. 2019, pp. 447–453, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax2342. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
Silverman, Ed. “The 5 Most Pressing Ethical Issues in Biotech Medicine.” Biotechnology Healthcare, vol. 1, no. 6, Dec. 2004, pp. 41–6, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3570985/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
World Health Organization. “Medical Devices.” Www.who.int, https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-policy-and-standards/assistive-and-medical-technology/medical-devices Accessed 26 Jan. 2024. Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board
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