Paul Gruszka:
The fundamental problem and what you are all eluding to is that the NHS doesn’t have a Research & development department so it is at the mercy of private companies that are all chasing profits. The worst being the drug companies that offer new drugs as new technology to prolong life on their drugs without site of a cure. If the electronics industry had the lack of progress that medicine has had over the last one hundred years we would still be using sparks to transmit radio signals and never have invented the valve let alone digital technology. Medicine is a closed shop with no mechanism for making progress and hence no mechanism for dealing with new technology. I posted a bit about Electrotherapy in the medical networking area here
communities.theiet.org/.../23737
that speaks volumes from the silence it received.
If you look at the history one can see medical progress has come from engineers whether it be mechanical engineers for the joints, heart valves or externals machines to assist the body, electrical engineers for the radio therapy and scanners or chemical engineers for drugs. We all know what happens to species that don’t make progress, they go extinct. It has to be down to government to create an R & D sections that goes in pursuit of cures not profits. Profit has no place in medicine since it ultimately puts the pursuit of money above the health of people. I know from my own investigations that any pathogen can be killed using Electrotherapy that includes the cure of cancers, HIV and Malaria. What could that do for the NHS budget in terms of emptying beds and eliminating the drugs bill for long term treatments?
Excellent post.
The NHS does carry out R&D but it's a tiny fraction of what they do. Part of the problem is that we don't really have a national health service because the NHS is subdivided into regional Trusts which are largely independent of each other and rarely collaborate with each other in shared projects. Another problem is popular opinion - if an NHS trust is given an extra £1m of funding then the majority of the public believe that it should be spent on frontline services rather than R&D. Employ more doctors and nurses as opposed to scientists and engineers.
You are correct that most progress in medicine has come from engineers rather than doctors. There are times when I think that the NHS can only survive the 21st century if it is vertically integrated where it designs and manufactures its own medical devices and pharmaceuticals in order to ensure that they meet the requirements of the patients and to prevent private companies from ripping off the NHS, and ultimately the taxpayer. In one hospital the medical engineering department used to design and fabricate its own bespoke surgical instruments - even for operations on specific patients - but had to cease because of legislation where all surgical instruments had to be formally approved and CE marked.
Paul Gruszka:
The fundamental problem and what you are all eluding to is that the NHS doesn’t have a Research & development department so it is at the mercy of private companies that are all chasing profits. The worst being the drug companies that offer new drugs as new technology to prolong life on their drugs without site of a cure. If the electronics industry had the lack of progress that medicine has had over the last one hundred years we would still be using sparks to transmit radio signals and never have invented the valve let alone digital technology. Medicine is a closed shop with no mechanism for making progress and hence no mechanism for dealing with new technology. I posted a bit about Electrotherapy in the medical networking area here
communities.theiet.org/.../23737
that speaks volumes from the silence it received.
If you look at the history one can see medical progress has come from engineers whether it be mechanical engineers for the joints, heart valves or externals machines to assist the body, electrical engineers for the radio therapy and scanners or chemical engineers for drugs. We all know what happens to species that don’t make progress, they go extinct. It has to be down to government to create an R & D sections that goes in pursuit of cures not profits. Profit has no place in medicine since it ultimately puts the pursuit of money above the health of people. I know from my own investigations that any pathogen can be killed using Electrotherapy that includes the cure of cancers, HIV and Malaria. What could that do for the NHS budget in terms of emptying beds and eliminating the drugs bill for long term treatments?
Excellent post.
The NHS does carry out R&D but it's a tiny fraction of what they do. Part of the problem is that we don't really have a national health service because the NHS is subdivided into regional Trusts which are largely independent of each other and rarely collaborate with each other in shared projects. Another problem is popular opinion - if an NHS trust is given an extra £1m of funding then the majority of the public believe that it should be spent on frontline services rather than R&D. Employ more doctors and nurses as opposed to scientists and engineers.
You are correct that most progress in medicine has come from engineers rather than doctors. There are times when I think that the NHS can only survive the 21st century if it is vertically integrated where it designs and manufactures its own medical devices and pharmaceuticals in order to ensure that they meet the requirements of the patients and to prevent private companies from ripping off the NHS, and ultimately the taxpayer. In one hospital the medical engineering department used to design and fabricate its own bespoke surgical instruments - even for operations on specific patients - but had to cease because of legislation where all surgical instruments had to be formally approved and CE marked.
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