CSC 480 Project Term

L e b a n e s e A m e r i c a n U n i v e r s i t y Term paper critique George Chalhoub 15 Summer I Telemedicine is a new technological field that lies at the interface between computer science and medicine. This paper discusses the topic but it does so in a fast way with few language mistakes and unsustianed logical development. It starts off by defining and explaining the history of telemedicine in a clear and fine way. The term paper goes on by providing examples of telemedicine applications in modern- day medicine, e.g. rural areas, space, the military, etc. It discusses some of the ethical issues surrounding telemedicine, i.e. the security of patient information in telemedical applications and databases and the practicality of remote medical access instead of nearby access. It then returns to the subtopic of telemedicine applications and discusses whether these applications are worthwhile and beneficial enough to outweigh the expenses. It then concludes by saying that telemedicine is driven mainly by providing and cost cutting instead of improved medical treatment and resources. I can greatly appreciate the ideas in the paper where there is focus enough on human relations between doctors and patients. I think the author was perfectly right, because it is widely admitted that many surgical interventions depend to a certain extent on the release and psychic state of the patient. This cannot be achieved without an intimate and tender feeling toward the patient. I also approve of her opinion suggesting money should be spent on health care and graduate doctors in rural areas, rather than resorting to telemedicine which is neither quite practical nor safe enough for the time being. The paper fairly stresses the importance of telemedicine in some applications like sending reports and advices to doctors in remote areas to deal with emergency situations when the surgeon is far away from the patients. It is also much advocated and praised to assist astronauts in their long space travel, or to help military forces or even treat prisoners. The language itself doesn’t weaken the argument or the facts presented in this paper, but it makes it difficult for the reader to fully understand what the author is saying and easily follow his argumentation and presentation. I will not discuss the language errors too much because most of them could have been easily solved with using a free Microsoft spell-checker or even a last-minute manual revision. The logical flow is confusing and its argumentation relies on using ‘rhetorical questions’ instead of providing clear facts and a thorough enough survey of the issue. The questions that the author raises should have been questions that she answered. Only two references were used making the author’s argument seem incomplete. In terms of topic development, it needs some work. The argumentation would be much smoother if simple things like subsections and headings were used. Overall, if I want to grade this paper, I’d give it possibly a C.