ABSTRACT
Technology is pervasive in today’s society. Our lives have been shaped and eased by computers, personal appliances, telecommunications, sound and videoelectronics and medical and diagnostic and treatment techniques to name just a few. The technologies we take for granted today have not been around that long. The first flush-ing toilet in the late 1800s, the first automobile in the 1890s, the first personal computers and automatic teller machines in 1970. All these technologies have made our lives more comfortable and have enabled us to do our jobs easier and faster. Information technology, telephones, facsimile machines and electronic mail are becoming more sophisticated every day. In the medical world, virtual surgery is becoming commonplace. This technology allows surgeons to practise delicate sur-geries in a simulated or virtual operating room with a virtual patient, before doing the real thing. Telephone/video hospital/ patient hook-ups are being tested in many rural areas of the USA where a patient has blood pressure, blood sugar, temperature and weight monitored twice a day by the doctor-even though the patient and doctor may be 200 miles apart.
