I remember hearing about laparoscopic surgery and ultrasonic treatments for gallbladder and kidney stones while growing up. My dad was a surgeon and that was a large part of his "business", but he was really excited about the advances. However, the earlier surgery of opening up someone's abdomen often meant days of stress about your patient lying in the hospital and potential complications. It was a job where you were often working on people who first met you when they seemed relatively healthy, but with some pains, and were quickly getting worse. "Rounds", where you toured every patient in the hospital to check on their recovery, was a part of every day of the year, and it was nominally unpaid (though the time and attention was included in the "package" of treatment).

At things like holiday period cocktail parties I definitely heard, especially spouses, talk about how those changes would be dangerous since the surgeon wouldn't have a full picture of what was going on in the abdomen, etc. (Sometimes it's safer not to wear a seatbelt, too!)

Anyway, I think that at the same time that gallstones and kidney stones became less labor intensive there were so many new things than needed general surgeons than there was no impact on labor.

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Back to your question, there seem to be stories about curing caries as a phenomenon somewhat frequently, and they've appeared regularly for decades.

Is this, instead, like developing a good cross-platform IMAP client? Anything that is good enough to replace the large email providers' own apps and web portals gets aquihired. Clearly the programmers must have been skilled enough to handle a large number of arcane edge cases and understood users well, so they'd be great people to have work for them. Plus, there's less likelihood that they continue to keep IMAP access normalized, and then also happen to provide a really effective and easy drop in encryption service.

It would appear in this specific case, you would still need a qualified professional to insert the drug soaked 'sponge' and cover the hole. So if this makes it to market it would just be the latest and greatest new tool for dentists to repair tooth decay.

As far as lobbyists blocking innovation to protect their industries 'status quo.' Yes I imagine it happens quite a bit. For example there is a strong lobby to keep tax forms and processes complicated and unfriendly to normal people so that companies whose bread and butter is helping you fill out your taxes each year can stay in business.

No, it creates labor by making life cheaper and thus increasing purchasing power and real wages.