Medicine + Technology + Art

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This week we learned about the interconnectedness of medicine, art, and technology. In Hippocratic's modern version of his speech he relays that "there is art to medicine as well as science...". Art plays a huge role when it comes to medicine as it's responsible for mapping out the body to creating little characters to get children excited to learn about the benefits of medicine. 

Medical pills cartoon characters. Medicine with cute faces,

An example of this would be Virgil Wong. He is a man that stands at the forefront of medical advancement and technology. He has gone to create a plethora of websites and databases like WeillCornell.com, a healthcare portal that gives patients access to their own health files and an online space where they could virtually contact their doctors. He "create[s] avatars and symptom data visualizations to help physicians see their patients more clearly" and he was able to achieve this with the creation of Medical Avatar. Medical Avatar is a program where you enter one of their "Health Time Machines" to scan your body and see personalized simulations of all of your possible futures. Your virtual avatar can show you learning dance choreographies and acrobatics; or if you're into something more serious, it can guide you on a nutritional journey and help you improve your sleep quality. The possibilities are endless and once you're done, you can download the app and keep the fun going at home. 

Medical Avatar | 3-D Healthy Selfie and the Health Time Machine – See a healthier you.

Another interesting website is Mission Eternity and their goal is to map out the afterlife. They have two groups of users, the M∞ Angels, the living group, and the M∞ Pilots, that signify the those who have already passed. Their goal is to take a closer dive into the way "society deals with memory(conservation / loss), time(future / present / past) and death". Their database is responsible for storing human remains and they achieve this by looking at their traces in global memory, whether it be found in things like government data bases or the "emotional data" they place as electrical impulses. Etoy wants to capture the soul of their users and allowing those who use them to have an "active presence" online even after they pass away. They are forever kept in our memory through the use of this database. Without knowing it, art has infiltrated its way into medicine and will continue to stay hand-in-hand with it as long as technology continues to evolve with them.

References

1. Etoy. (2007). Mission Eternity. Mission Eternity / Mission Eternity. http://www.missioneternity.org/cult-of-the-dead/

2. Listed, N. (2024). See a healthier you. Medical Avatar 3D Healthy Selfie and the Health Time Machine. https://medicalavatar.com/

3. One, M. (2023, April). Medical Pills Cartoon characters. medicine with cute faces,. DesignBundles.net. https://designbundles.net/microone/2530999-medical-pills-cartoon-characters-medicine-with-cut

4. Tyson, P. (2001, March 27). The Hippocratic Oath Today. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/hippocratic-oath-today/

5. Wong, V. (2020, February 20). Bio. Virgil Wong. https://www.virgilwong.com/bio/

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