How modern medicine was made, conclusion: Improving lives

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Click here to read part 6: Military medicine advances health care for soldiers and civilians

In the past 100 years, physicians and patients have witnessed some of the greatest leaps in medical advances in recorded history, and there will be more. Physicians know the technology is a means to an end. “Improving and enhancing the relationship between the patient and the physician must be key as we think about technology,” says Ripley Hollister, M.D., a family physician and board member of The Physicians Foundation.

The many pioneers mentioned in this article did not work alone. Always in the background were the many frontline physicians who applied these new technologies and breakthroughs to their practice, treating their patients every day, always with the drive and determination of making lives better. It is an attitude summed up by the words of Elise Lauterbur about her father, MRI pioneer Paul Lauterbur.

“He pursued it and kept pursuing it for just about the rest of his career,” she says. “He ultimately saw it as a way to improve people’s lives.”

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How modern medicine was made: Table of contents

• Introduction
• Part 1: The importance of medical imaging
• Part 2: The power of vaccination
• Part 3: The history of antibiotic development
• Part 4: The importance of insulin's discovery
• Part 5: The development of surgery and organ transplantation
• Part 6: Military medicine advances health care for soldiers and civilians
• Conclusion: Improving lives