Emma Gimmel, RN, director of nursing at Manhattan Endoscopy in New York City, joined Becker’s to discuss what’s making her hopeful and what’s making her skeptical about the future of medicine.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What makes you hopeful for the future of medicine? Why?
Emma Gimmel: It’s easier to reach communities. There’s more accessibility with care alternatives, such as virtual consultations and deliveries whereas before this was not possible. These alternatives are helpful to access those who are too busy to take time to attend medical appointments. Virtual consultations/follow-ups and deliveries, with the prospect of practitioners’ shortages, is a hopeful and convenient option that may help and facilitate care delivery.
Additionally, [I’m hopeful about] monumental medical science advances, the resourceful advance testing, finding more with less. The quick and accurate diagnosis offering options for treatments, care and life modifications were previously limited or less certain. Can AI improve by eliminating medical errors?
In theory, it all appears hopeful and promising, with a degree of skepticism due to, but not limited to, huge financial restraints (those actual and those manmade), government rulings, institutions distributions, earnings expectations and the trust in the medical system and [its]intentions.
Q: What scares you for the future of medicine?
EG: Medical science is amazing, but when we’re moving at the speed of light as in the last years, including those findings that are circumstantial, then the concepts become more complex and difficult to assimilate by the general population. Additionally, with the communication options we have, pesky misinformation trends easily distributed and made available, attractive to some, only create more confusion with serious and damaging consequences.
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