Doctors

There's a scene in Star Trek IV (the one where they go back in time to 1986 San Francisco) where Dr. McCoy makes a comment about how 20th Century doctors are still in the Dark Ages, cutting open people's heads to fix hemmorages. It's funny because, of course, brain surgery is considered very cutting edge at this point in history, especially compared 150+ years ago, when surgery was really more of a pre-mortem autopsy, a nice little anatomy lesson for the physicians. But it's a nice reminder that, while we've come a long way in medicine and surgery, there's a long way to go (really, that applies to many/most fields of study).

Anyway, I say this as a prelude to my follow-up appointment today with the otolaryngologist. Thanks to sophisticated audio tests, blood tests, and an MRI, they are able to tell that I have hearing loss in one ear (but only in the high ranges), and they are able to rule out a number of potential causes. But they are not able to pinpoint the exact cause of my problem. In a hundred years, they'll probably laugh at the primitive audio tests and MRIs. And if I lived in 2105, they'd have my hearing back to normal. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to sit back and wait for progress. :)