I’m very excited to be stepping into a larger role with the King County Medical Society (KCMS) this year at the turn of the decade.  It’s a great time to reflect on some truly amazing progress in the field of medicine.

Over this past decade, oncologists have been seeing some of the biggest strides in pharmacology with immunotherapy advances. This year, precision medicine was able to reach a new degree of precision with the development Milasen, a targeted oligonucleotide that was designed to treat a disease with an n of 1.  In less than one year from initial contact, researchers amazingly completed the development of effective treatment for a young girl who had an entirely unique form of the rare neurologic, progressive disorder of Baten’s disease. In an already unequal health care system, this $3million R&D funding that was raised through Mila’s Miracle Foundation (and other sources) provided some challenging ethical debates regarding the disparities in the ability of individuals to raise funds toward custom therapies. Additionally, the ethics of testing and treating with a personalized drug was questioned. Needless to say, nanotechnology research promises new and intriguing forms of drug delivery for the future. 

This fall’s WSMA annual meeting featured Health futurist Dr. Rubin Pillai MD, Ph.D. who presented some of the year’s most interesting new ventures in medical technology. The list included the usage of AI in evaluating dermatologic and ophthalmologic conditions to improve access and accuracy, 3D printing of human organs, and drones with defibrillators to potentially provide cardiac arrest patients their first shock sooner.  Having seen the devastating effects of delayed CPR in the field, this is intriguing, but I would also hope that someone on the scene was trained in BLS to provide the circulation for effective defibrillation.  

Physicians are also learning to work with patients in the adoption of 'wearables'. These great technologies, like Kardia and the Apple watch, provide opportunities for arrhythmia detection and much more. With all of this direct to consumer technology and many of us working a stone’s throw from Microsoft or Amazon, our patients seem to have high expectations for our Electronic Medical Records.  “It’s in the chart,” is often the chief complaint that I hear when admitting a patient from the ER/ED as if I have some kind of AI to guide me to the appropriate info.  I’m just glad that my life’s calling hasn’t been replaced by IBM’s Watson, yet. 

With all of this discussion about advancing medical technologies, my senior public health colleagues are quick to point out the importance of clean running water, sanitation systems, and vaccines among proven interventions that have already been scaled and have changed the modern world, and yet are still taken for granted.  In fact, these basic health interventions are still priority items for KCMS as we have spent the last year working with WA DOH on lead screening and now passed a pair of resolutions on vaccine reporting.  While we venture into new territory and forge new partnerships with our first annual HealthTech Summit this year, our public health committee remains a workhorse in our stable.  

Please join us as we continue our commitment to improving the health of our community.  Our Public Health committee is led by Dr. Amish Dave and meets bi-monthly on Tuesdays evenings. Please bring your ideas and energy to create and implement initiatives on Feb 18th at 6:30 p.m. Contact Salem Adisu for more information: sadisu@kcmsocidety.org 

Stay posted on these and other happenings at KCMSociety.org/events and we look forward to hearing from you. 
Sincerely, 

Rajneet