Ever since I've become a father, stories of children dying or just barely surviving have an immense emotional impact on me. I almost cried when I read that the boy from the article survived the operation and had a second, better chance at life. I can't imagine what his parents must have been going through.
All this thanks to technological and medical progess. What would his fate have been 20 years earlier? 40 years earlier? Think of all the technology that was necessary to perform that operation. The technology needed to build and support that technology, ad infinitum. If you have the ability and the motivation to work in science or on new technology, please do so. Even if it's not directly related to medicine: Maybe that software you're writing will make it slightly easier to build other software that will make it slightly easier to build other software that will make it slightly easier to build a machine that one day helps save a young boy's life.
All this thanks to technological and medical progess. What would his fate have been 20 years earlier? 40 years earlier? Think of all the technology that was necessary to perform that operation. The technology needed to build and support that technology, ad infinitum. If you have the ability and the motivation to work in science or on new technology, please do so. Even if it's not directly related to medicine: Maybe that software you're writing will make it slightly easier to build other software that will make it slightly easier to build other software that will make it slightly easier to build a machine that one day helps save a young boy's life.