Practice laboratories and their development

You've probably heard the saying, "Everything was better in the old days." But was it really?

We will take you on a journey through time to the past of a medical practice.

We'll start in the Middle Ages.

Granted, there were no medical practices then, but there were doctors, who were called physicians or healers. Despite the limited knowledge about the human body, they already mastered some techniques. Among them was the suturing technique of hemostasis, which is still used today.

Surely you are wondering how hygiene was at that time.

Of course, hygiene regulations were not yet known in the Middle Ages, and neither were sterile working materials. But did you know that penicillin was already used in the Middle Ages to treat wound infections? Medicine at that time was already more advanced than we think.

Time passed and medicine continued to develop.

Let's take a big leap forward, to the end of the 18th century.

On 22.12.1895 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen took the first X-ray picture. His wife had to sit still for more than half an hour. The X-ray image of his wife's hand is still the most spectacular X-ray image in the world. The radiation doses were enormous and there were no lead aprons or similar at that time.

The first radiation damage was recognized in 1896, which was specified in 1904. In the past, 74mSv was needed for an X-ray of a hand. Today it is just 0.05mSv. What used to take up to 90 minutes is now done in just a few seconds. In 1973 there was the first digital X-ray. The development of laboratory medicine took its course early on. The chemists of that time made our current progress possible through their experiments.

The history of physician assistants, or better known today as MPAs, also took its course at the beginning of the 19th century.

Since there were no doctors' offices in the past, they were nurses who, for example, helped the doctors in the military hospitals to care for the soldiers.

They were also Red Cross nurses, who were on the front lines of the war.

They were responsible for the care of wounds, the sick, the organization of the military hospitals and the management of medical supplies. Tasks which are still performed today by MPAs or MPKs.

From 1945 on, the first medical practices were opened in Switzerland, thus the job description changed from nurse to physician's assistant.

But how has the job changed from physician's assistant in the mid-19th century to MPA in the 20th century? Basically, not much has changed in terms of the core job, but the processes and activities have changed due to digitization. X-rays have been digitized, blood smears or urine sediments no longer have to be microscoped in the practice but can be sent to an external laboratory, blood values can be determined within a few minutes by laboratory equipment, the patient's blood pressure is measured automatically by means of an apparatus, paper KGs have been digitized by physician software and telephone receivers have become headsets.

It is impossible to imagine today's everyday practice without these technical means, even if they create new risks. Internet outages and PC or laboratory system failures are today's difficulties and can lead to serious problems.

Whatever technologies and challenges await us in the future, one thing remains certain: A doctors office without a medical practice assistant is like Max without Moritz.