A couple of
years ago, I did a series of world building posts that concentrated on
different aspects of the world building we do in our stories. We all build the “worlds”
our characters inhabit. Sometimes we call it “setting” instead of world
building. Whatever we call it, we develop the conditions surrounding our characters.
Today, I’m concentrating on medicine of the future.
In my science
fiction romance, The Pilot (An Outer
Rime Novel), a medi-healer is used to cure the hero’s infection. In my world,
the handheld device is too expensive for a cargo pilot (the heroine) to own.
But her brother, who works for a galactic gangster, has one. He waved the device
over the patient. It diagnosed and cured. A medi-healer would’ve come in handy
for me two weeks ago.
This has been
a bad winter health-wise for many people. Influenza that the flu shots didn’t
prevent. People in hospitals, even dying. I counted my self lucky that when
Hubs and other members of the family got sick I didn’t. My luck ran out right
before Easter. I woke up coughing. Okay, a cold finally hit. So I thought. If I’d
had a handy-dandy medical tricorder, like Star
Trek’s Doctor McCoy, it would’ve told me I had pneumonia. In a scenario
from The Pilot, a medi-healer would’ve
diagnosed then cured. All with a wave of the device. No going to Urgent Care,
no x-rays, no courses of antibiotics—one to cure pneumonia and a second course
to take care of a subsequent sinus/ear infection.
That got me
thinking about what else would the future hold in the medical field. In The Pilot, my character used a hover
board to carry a patient to the medical center. It rises above the ground on a
steady stream of air and is guided by one person. Remember the scene in Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
when Han, encased in carbonite, is guided to the bounty hunter’s ship?
Creating a cyborg
isn’t the future. It’s here now. Artificial joints are common. I have two titanium
knees, and I know people who’ve had hip and shoulder replacements. Mechanical hands
that function like real ones by being connected to the brain. The “Six Million
Dollar Man” was fantasy back in 1974. Today, the severely injured can now be “rebuilt”
with artificial arms and legs.
In Greta van
der Rol’s Iron Admiral series, humans
are fitted with neuro implants that allow them to speak without words. They can
access data ports using their implants, no typing necessary, and store the info
until it can be downloaded. Fiction? As his ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease)
advanced, Stephen Hawking, the physicist and cosmologist who just passed away, was
unable to speak. Using a speech-generating device (SGD), he was able to
communicate using a single cheek muscle. SGDs are used by many people for whom
speech is impossible or difficult.
What else is
coming in the medical field? Organ transplanting isn’t new. Creating an organ,
like a kidney, using a 3-D printer is a real possibility. Curing diseases using
a cell instead of a pill. Surgery using ultrasound instead of a knife. A
vaccine patch instead of an injections. Robots doing surgery.
Nanobots, microscopic
machines, could carry medicine to certain parts of the body to heal diseased
parts or destroy (cancer cells) on a molecular level. In science fiction,
nanobots are commonly used. Yet the thought of tiny robots running around
through my blood stream is kind of creepy. If nanobots could destroy cancer
cells without the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and/or radiation, I’d
take the nanobots.
What other fantastical
medical advances are possible?
The Pilot (An Outer Rim Novel) blurb:
Sparks fly
around the Outer Rim when rule-bound Administrator Trevarr Jovano clashes with
free-spirited space pilot Celara d'Enfaden. She must deliver her cargo or lose
her ship to a loanshark. Having lost her last shipment to pirates masquerading
as Coalition Inspectors, Celara refuses to be duped again. Determined to make
an example of those who flaunt the law, Trevarr seizes her ship. Yet, they must
work together to rescue her brother and find his wife's murderer.
The Pilot (An Outer Rim Novel) is available at:
