Blog 2-Kelly Thomas

The article I read, “Doctor on-call? Cell-Phone Camera Can Diagnose Disease”, talks about new technologies enabling small third world countries to have access to medical doctors. Doctors at California-Berkley have designed a device called, Cellscope which is a microscope that attaches to a camera-equipped cell phone and produces two kinds of imaging, called brightfield and fluorescence microscopy. The cellscope can take pictures and send them to medical laboratories all over the world. These advancements can help places around the world that lack the technological advancements that places like the United States have. The CellScope tests were carried out by using a 3.2 megapixel cell phone. However, the scope that is attached is not the smallest of devices. Researchers and developers will need to do a lot of work to shrink it down to a good size to be able to use in remote areas. In the article they discuss how different LED lights are used depending on the disease being looked at, for example, when testing for the presence of TB bacilli researchers use a high-power blue LED to illuminate the sample.

I believe that this new technology is an excellent advancement that the whole world can benefit from. There are so many people in third world countries that are dying of diseases that are undiagnosed. With the help of this new innovation, they are able to have access to doctors around the world. Developing countries are now able to get help in places that are unreachable by a doctor. This is advancement in technology can really allow the world to take a step in the right direction. At times, I feel that technology has made our world very lazy, but this is an excellent advancement that so many people can benefit from.

When I was a senior in high school I traveled to El Salvador with my Church and I came to realize how many people are sick and do not have a doctor at their fingertips to help them. In the United States we do not realize how lucky we are and how we have become so used to having everything we could ever want at our finger tips. Something as simple as a camera that can send pictures to a medical laboratory could potentially change a person’s life in a positive way. Allowing a child or adult, in a third world country, to be diagnosed with a disease and helped would be an awesome technological advancement in our world. However, this great advancement would help with the diagnosis of a disease, but it does not guarantee that their disease will be treated and helped. Third world countries lack money, which we are lucky enough to have. Overall, I really think this is an excellent invention that many people could benefit from in the end.