WEBVTT

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[Title frame missing]

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[The librarian and the young doctor exchange information.]

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[A young doctor searches the stacks for reading material.]

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[Doctor 1:] How is the blood pressure?

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[Nurse:] Not sure yet.

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Falling.

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[Surgical instruments clinking and valve turning.]

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[Doctor 1:] Let's have another [?] please.

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[Background sounds]

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Testing.

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[Guide:] This whole operation is expanding with our research program.

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We're getting new buildings, our staff is growing but we still find ourselves in need

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of newer and better facilities.

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Of course, it's the same everywhere, at the government institutes, the large private concerns,

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pharmaceutical laboratories.

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But after all, when you consider the fantastic growth of medical research...uh, step in here, please.

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This is one of our recently equipped laboratories.

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The university, by the way, is quite interested in this particular experiment.

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We expect some significant results within the next few months,

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which could lead us off into an entirely new direction.

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[Doctor 1:] I would say yes to that.

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Everyone is familiar with the explosion of medical technology,

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and medicine will continue to grow at a fantastic rate.

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This we take for granted.

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But in the excitement, we've been overlooking a few things.

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For example, the fact that we in the profession are losing touch with each other

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and each other's work.

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It's a big science, today's medicine.

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It's becoming increasingly fragmented.

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We're spanning out in a thousand directions.

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Each new discipline has its own maze of facts and figures, its own esoteric jargon.

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If we lose sight of each other, we could lose sight of the common goal, which is health, is it not?

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Ideally, I should be aware of all new work being done in fields related to mine,

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but I have a hard enough time keeping up in my own field.

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As for the medical students, I don't know how they manage to learn all they're supposed to.

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[Guide:] As a matter of fact, a lot of very interesting developments

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have come about indirectly.

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We'll be running an experiment and several unfamiliar problems will arise,

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each one of which leads us on into something entirely different.

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New insights, new problems, new directions.

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There's no end to it. We always have to be prepared to branch out.

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[Doctor 1:] Oh, yes, definitely.

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What has happened? What concerns me the most is that all this diverse activity has produced a logjam of information

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and it will continue to pile up unless we get better ways to get it moving.

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We need to disentangle this vital knowledge and make use of it.

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And this is going to require better methods of communication.

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Better teaching methods.

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We're expecting a lot of important data from this experiment.

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[Guide:] Of course, it's a little early to be certain, but there may be other applications

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in chemotherapy, particularly in connection with cardiovascular surgery.

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[Doctor 1:] In surgery, you have to teach largely by demonstration.

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This means that you can handle only a few students at a time.

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As it is, a practicing physician can scarcely afford...

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[Guide:] The time it takes to find out whether someone else has done this before is often longer

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than the actual time it takes to run the experiment yourself.

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[Doctor 1:] We need some means to amplify the effectiveness of the expert.

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[Guide:] These men have become authorities in their fields.

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[Doctor 1:] There's so little time to teach.

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[Guide:] More and more data is piling up.

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[Doctor 1:] Specialization will increase.

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[Guide:] Research is growing.

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[Doctor 1:] The little time it takes is necessary.

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Consider what you mean by basic education.

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This is grounded on the somewhat dubious assumption that in a given number of years,

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we can learn the fundamentals of each discipline.

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But what are those fundamentals these days?

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[Doctor 2:] Right.

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Look at it this way. We'll be 30 years old, be in school for, let's see, two to three years,

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and you'll still have another two, maybe four years to go in your specialty.

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[Doctor 3:] Well, that depends on the field.

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[Doctor 2:] No. Take any field you want. I don't care what it is, you've got some time to put in.

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I mean, pick something really small and special, like a little corner in dermatology or pediatrics or something.

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If you started right now at the rate things are going, you've got three years of reading to do.

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[Doctor 4:] Three years?

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You might get started in three years.

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Stuff is pouring in so fast, three years is gonna look like three months.

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[Doctor 2:] And reading is only part of it.

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You know, what you really need is a whole headful of transistors and a plug...

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where every time you needed to know something all you'd have to do is lie down and plug yourself in.

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[Medical practitioner walks through library stacks.]

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[Narrator:] The problem:

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information,

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knowledge,

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lots of it.

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So much we can scarcely comprehend the volume, the weight of it.

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Volume and weight.

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Odd measurements of knowledge.

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Maybe it's not so odd when you think about it.

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How much of it gets lost.

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Buried.

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How many pounds?

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How many cubic feet?

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How much desperately needed information?

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Too much to learn.

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Too little time. Too few teachers.

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Too many people who need to know things, important things.

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Too much knowledge?

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How can that be?

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How can there be too much knowledge about curing disease, saving lives?

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How, when there's so much we don't know?

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What we need are better ways to process information, evaluate it, assimilate it.

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We need better ways to communicate it clearly and rapidly.

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Better ways to get it where it's needed.

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[Music]

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Sometimes it's better to see something. Really see it.

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Or hear something.

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[Whirring tape sound]

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[Music]

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A picture can be worth a thousand words.

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[Music]

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A picture can be priceless.

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[Music]

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Pictures can see into the heart.

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Pictures show, describe with colors.

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[Music]

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With movement.

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[Music]

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Pictures capture.

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Pictures preserve.

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A picture can go places easier and faster.

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It can go a lot of places at once.

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[Music]

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The instructor can't.

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[Music]

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Not actually, but an image of him can.

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His voice can.

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[Instructor:] The pathologist has had difficulty in establishing the diagnosis of carcinoma

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and the lesion has...

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[Audiovisual producer:] We've got some motion picture film coming up in about three minutes.

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We're going to stand by to assist.

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[Instructor:] Makes the clinical differentiation of that...

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[Narrator:] He can pack up his lesson and mail it.

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[Sound of liquid bubbling in a beaker in the lab.]

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Pictures talk in any language--to the literate, to the illiterate.

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[Music]

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Pictures can teach.

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Sounds can teach.

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They can teach a lot of things faster and better, again and again.

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You still need books.

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You still need teachers,

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but pictures and sounds can bring books to life.

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They can provide the best teachers when and where they're needed.

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[Doctor 1:] It's a new science, today's medicine.

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It's becoming increasingly fragmented.

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We're fanning out in a thousand directions.

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And each new discipline has its own maze of facts and figures, its own esoteric jargon.

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If we lose sight of each other, we could lose sight of the common goal, which is health, is it not?

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[Narrator:] Sounds and pictures.

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Audiovisuals.

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[Music]

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[A Public Health Service Audiovisual Facility Production]

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[Produced at the Communicable Disease Center]

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[The End, M-1047]