Saturday, April 7, 2007

MRI devices are primitive.

No, they are not. The detail of information you get from the MRI machine is tremendous. Though you can peek into the human body without a surgical procedure, from the patients perspective there are some disturbing facts:

1.) Its not the most comfortable place. Sticking your body in a barely fitting tunnel with an odd mask for 15-20 minutes without moving is itself challenging. Once in, your face is just about 2-3 cm away from the top of the tunnel. Afraid of closed spaces ? This is not the place to be. Miners might feel at home. Why couldn't they make this tunnel any bigger ?

2.) Alone. The 20 minutes might appear lonely for the miner too. Not sure why there isn't a mechanism to communicate between the caved-in fellow and the operator outside - a status update would always do good.

3.) Noises - This rather complicated modern machine grumbles like a bad boy each time it works. Grumbles for the machine turn out to be noise for the patient. Again, can't this ear-drum breaking buzz be avoided?
The operator might suggest sleep as an option. Sure, if your entire life was spent in the engine room.

4.) Exit path - No procedure is in place for the caved-in fellow to exit in case of an emergency - say when you feel real frustrated and you just want to get out. A red button with an arrow would be nice.

Though the results from machine are of great help, we appear to have a long way to go in terms of the MRI technology. A small wearable device which does the job in under minute should be perfect? Yeah. Lucky grand-son.

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