144 practice makes perfect Advanced English Reading and Comprehension
to travel. In a telemedical intensive care unit (ICU), a patient’s vital signs, laboratory indings, and
medical notes are shown on displays, and cameras and microphones link medical staf to patients
in their rooms. Besides having a complete overview of several patients simultaneously without
having to be physically present at their bedsides, specialists can confer and communicate with
each other more quickly in emergency situations. Radio-frequency identiication (RFID) devices
are used to track everything from misplaced instruments in an operating room to the where-
abouts of doctors, pharmaceutical salespeople, and visitors in hospitals. Constantly vigilant smart
alarms programmed with artiicial intelligence can tell a doctor what is wrong with a patient and
what needs to be done. Store-and-forward telemedical applications, useful in radiology, let physi-
cians instantly transfer data, such as X-rays, to distant locations, thereby saving critical hours or
even days.
5 In the future, computer networking infrastructure will allow housebound and bedridden
patients to receive medical care without having to go out the door. A study of diabetes patients
conducted by Columbia University revealed that, ater a year, glucose management, blood pres-
sure, and cholesterol levels in telemedical patients were better than in patients who received rou-
tine care. Digital health equipment of the future will be highly sophisticated, use artiicial intel-
ligence, and be integrated into the furniture, and telehealth units will include user-friendly
health-oriented sotware with intelligent alarms, troubleshooting wizards, and patient access to
educational medical websites. Of course, all of this will not happen overnight, due to the high
costs of building infrastructure and the time involved, but the long-term savings to the health
care industry and the convenience to patients make the expansion of computer use inevitable.
6 Beginning with intestinal laparoscopic surgery, also known as keyhole surgery, cutting-edge
surgical techniques are radically changing how surgeons operate. Now used for plastic surgery,
heart surgery, and brain surgery in addition to abdominal procedures, minimally invasive lapa-
roscopic surgery results in less postoperative pain and scarring and reduces the risk of infection
and complications. A further development is robotic surgery. Highly trained surgeons equipped
with three-dimensional eyepieces and seated at a console can manipulate interchangeable
mechanical robotic hands to perform diicult heart operations or delicate head and neck proce-
dures on cancer patients. Multijointed insectlike robotic appendages are more lexible, dexter-
ous, and sterile than human hands, and they can be programmed to eliminate tremor when sew-
ing small vessels or nerves together. Robotic hands, however, cannot feel the tissue they are
operating on, but scientists and engineers in the ield of haptic engineering are working on solu-
tions that will one day create tactile sensory feedback in robots. Although robotic technology is
still very costly and surgeons face a steep learning curve, robotic surgery is the future. As tele-
medical robotic surgery progresses and network connections link the globe, surgeons will not
have to be physically present to perform robotic surgeries on patients in remote and ofshore
locations.
7 Many of us have had personal experience with computer-based medical technology, or we
do not ind the idea of robots that clean loors and sterilize surgical instruments or function as
nursing assistants all that far-fetched. Already, mobile medical robots exist to deliver drugs and
allow doctors to make virtual patient rounds in ultra-modern hospitals. A leader in robotics and
electronics, Japan has invested extensively in robotic technologies to provide care to a growing
elderly population. On the other side of the technological coin, research in nanotechnology and
stem cells is embarking on a journey that is as controversial as it is mind-boggling.
8 Deined as “the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale,” nanotechnology
has already led to the manufacture of new metals, polymers, and composites. Still under develop-
ment, nanoparticles, nanomaterials, and nanoceramics promise better, stronger, lighter, and more
efective adhesives, bandages, epoxies, and bone substitutes. Nanomedicine aims to construct
minuscule biomechanical machines—a nanometer measures one billionth of a meter—that are
able to interact with cells at the molecular level and alter cellular processes that lead to cancer and