Digitalisation and technological development have enabled medicine to make a qualitative leap almost as important as the discovery of the smallpox vaccine or penicillin. But unlike the latter two, which in themselves marked a turning point in the improvement of human welfare, in the case of the former, it is their combination that has generated a real revolution in the world of medicine, although for the moment we have barely been able to 'scratch' the surface.
These fields of medical possibilities have also opened the door to countless job opportunities that are already considered the professions of the future in the world of health. Here are some of them.
Nanomedicine specialist
The continuous commitment to the miniaturisation of health technologies has run parallel to the development of treatments aimed at curing and even preventing diseases from a cellular and molecular perspective.
For years, medical researchers have been testing nanobots that can be introduced inside the human body to perform specific therapeutic actions, such as the design of robotic white blood cells that can travel through the bloodstream and find the pathogens they need to neutralise. Or the design of tiny robots that aim to locate tumours and smother the vascular cells that supply them with blood in order to kill them.
However, nanomedicine has also begun to embrace the field of pharmacology, especially in cases where treatments are particularly aggressive, such as those requiring chemotherapy. This speciality works to ensure that these drugs are released more precisely and fight cancer cells in order to reduce the side effects of treatment.
There are already several universities with degrees in nanoscience and nanotechnology, in A Coruña and Barcelona, and doctorates in nanomedicine.
VR therapist
Immersive technologies have already demonstrated their effectiveness in disciplines such as neurology, surgery, psychiatry and psychology, to the point that they are considered to be tools of the present and future.
Added to this are the enormous advantages they offer in the field of medical training, and so-called "in silico" medicine, which allows virtual patients to be designed to replicate clinical cases and predict a person's response to a particular treatment.
This type of technology is a beneficial alternative for the reduction of post-surgical pain, the treatment of phobias, precision in the performance of surgeries, etc.
Bioinformatics specialist
Although it may seem paradoxical, the advance of COVID-19 has contributed to giving bioinformatics, a science that aims to research, develop and apply computer and computational tools to manipulate and interpret biological data, a greater projection.
Bioinformaticians are biotechnology and informatics specialists who use all this data to develop new medical treatments. For example, bioinformatics helps to analyse DNA sequences to determine which genes encode certain proteins and thus design drugs that can activate or inhibit the function of those proteins.
The advance of bioinformatics as an enabling discipline in fields such as biomedicine, and even agriculture and food, has triggered the demand for specialised professionals and the creation of new degrees or different postgraduate training masters.