Star Trek medicine

I spent this afternoon compiling a list of new treatments and resources for pancreatic cancer for my aunt so she can talk to her doctors about them. Her doctors might not necessarily know about these treatments because they're so new. These new treatments seem to be the best hope for survival, and even possibly a cure, because the current treatment regimen, while better than the old one, is still nothing to crow about.

It just drives home to me how little we still understand about how the body and diseases like cancer work. I feel like Bones McCoy in Star Trek IV when he sees the woman on dialysis in the hospital and thinks we must be in the dark ages. I know it will change, eventually; it just can't be too soon for me. (Gee, can you tell how I stand on issues like genetics and stem cell research?)

I grew up watching Star Trek, and I always thought that when I heard people talk about getting stitches or being "sewn up," it was a metaphor. Imagine my shock when I discovered that people were actually being sewn up with thread and getting real stitches.

I'm cheering from the stands, "Come on, medical science! We really need a hit! Home run! Home run!"