[The librarian and the young doctor exchange information.]
[A young doctor searches the library stacks for reading material.]
[Surgeon:] How is the blood pressure?
[Nurse:] Not sure yet.
Falling.
[Surgical instruments clinking and sound of valve turning.]
[Surgeon:] Let's have another [?] please.
[Background sounds]
Testing.
[Guide:] This whole operation is expanding with our research program.
We're getting new buildings, our staff is growing, but we still find ourselves in need
of newer and better facilities.
Of course, it's the same everywhere, at the government institutes, the large private concerns,
pharmaceutical laboratories.
But after all, when you consider the fantastic growth of medical research...uh, step in here, please.
This is one of our recently equipped laboratories.
The university, by the way, is quite interested in this particular experiment.
We expect some significant results within the next few months,
which could lead us off into an entirely new direction.
[Surgeon:] I would say yes to that.
Everyone is familiar with the explosion of medical technology,
and medicine will continue to grow at a fantastic rate.
This we take for granted.
But in the excitement, we've been overlooking a few things.
For example, the fact that we in the profession are losing touch with each other
and each other's work.
It's a big science, today's medicine.
It's becoming increasingly fragmented.
We're spanning out in a thousand directions.
And each new discipline has its own maze of facts and figures, its own esoteric jargon.
If we lose sight of each other, we could lose sight of the common goal, which is health, is it not?
Ideally, I should be aware of all new work being done in fields related to mine,
but I have a hard enough time keeping up in my own field.
As for the medical students, I don't know how they manage to learn all they're supposed to.
[Guide:] As a matter of fact, a lot of very interesting developments
have come about indirectly.
We'll be running an experiment and several unfamiliar problems will arise,
each one of which leads us on into something entirely different.
New insights, new problems, new directions.
There's no end to it. We always have to be prepared to branch out.
[Surgeon:] Oh, yes, definitely.
What has happened? What concerns me the most is that all this diverse activity has produced a logjam of information
and it will continue to pile up unless we get better ways to get it moving.
We need to disentangle this vital knowledge and make use of it.
And this is going to require better methods of communication.
Better teaching methods.
We're expecting a lot of important data from this experiment.
[Guide:] Of course, it's a little early to be certain, but there may be other applications
in chemotherapy, particularly in connection with cardiovascular surgery.
[Surgeon:] In surgery, you have to teach largely by demonstration.
This means that you can handle only a few students at a time.
As it is, a practicing physician can scarcely afford...
[Guide:] The time it takes to find out whether someone else has done this before is often longer
than the actual time it takes to run the experiment yourself.
[Surgeon:] We need some means to amplify the effectiveness of the expert.
[Guide:] These men have become authorities in their fields.
[Surgeon:] There's so little time to teach.
[Guide:] More and more data is piling up.
[Surgeon:] Specialization will increase.
[Guide:] Research is growing.
[Surgeon:] The little time it takes is necessary.
Consider what you mean by basic education.
This is grounded on the somewhat dubious assumption that in a given number of years,
we can learn the fundamentals of each discipline.
But what are those fundamentals these days?
[Doctor 2:] Right.
Look at it this way. We'll be 30 years old, you would have been in school for, let's see, 23 years,
and you'll still have another two, maybe four years to go in your specialty.
[Doctor 3:] Well, that depends on the field.
[Doctor 2:] No. Take any field you want. I don't care what it is, you've got some time to put in.
I mean, pick something really small and special, like a little corner in dermatology or pediatrics or something.
If you started right now, at the rate things are going, you've got three years of reading to do.
[Doctor 4:] Three years?
You might get started in three years.
Stuff is pouring in so fast, three years is gonna look like three months.
[Doctor 2:] And reading is only part of it.
You know, what you really need is a whole headful of transistors and a plug...
where every time you needed to know something, all you'd have to do is lie down and plug yourself in.
[Medical practitioner walks through library stacks.]
[Narrator:] The problem:
information,
knowledge,
lots of it.
So much we can scarcely comprehend the volume, the weight of it.
Volume and weight.
Odd measurements of knowledge.
Maybe it's not so odd when you think about it.
How much of it gets lost.
Buried.
How many pounds?
How many cubic feet?
How much desperately needed information?
Too much to learn.
Too little time. Too few teachers.
Too many people who need to know things, important things.
Too much knowledge?
How can that be?
How can there be too much knowledge about curing disease, saving lives?
How, when there's so much we don't know?
What we need are better ways to process information, evaluate it, assimilate it.
We need better ways to communicate it clearly and rapidly.
Better ways to get it where it's needed.
[Music]
Sometimes it's better to see something. Really see it.
Or hear something.
[Whirring tape sound]
[Music]
A picture can be worth a thousand words.
[Music]
A picture can be priceless.
[Music]
Pictures can see into the heart.
Pictures show, describe, with colors.
[Music]
With movement.
[Music]
Pictures capture.
Pictures preserve.
A picture can go places easier and faster.
It can go a lot of places at once.
[Music]
The instructor can't.
[Music]
Not actually, but an image of him can.
His voice can.
[Instructor:] The pathologist has had difficulty in establishing the diagnosis of carcinoma
and the lesion has...
[Audiovisual producer:] We've got some motion picture film coming up in about three minutes.
We're going to stand by to assist.
[Instructor:] Makes the clinical differentiation of that...
[Narrator:] He can pack up his lesson and mail it.
[Sound of liquid bubbling in a beaker in the lab.]
Pictures talk, in any language. To the literate, to the illiterate.
[Music]
Pictures can teach.
Sounds can teach.
They can teach a lot of things faster and better, again and again.
You still need books.
You still need teachers,
but pictures and sounds can bring books to life.
They can provide the best teachers when and where they're needed.
[Surgeon:] It's a new science, today's medicine.
It's becoming increasingly fragmented.
We're fanning out in a thousand directions.
And each new discipline has its own maze of facts and figures, its own esoteric jargon.
If we lose sight of each other, we could lose sight of the common goal, which is health, is it not?
[Narrator:] Sounds and pictures.
Audiovisuals.
[Music]