My father is in the hospital right now and I feel the same frustration. A family friend who is a professor of radiology mentioned that a major driver of research in medical imaging comes from video game graphics work. He even submitted a paper to siggraph around interpolating 3d space from 2d CT scans. There are direct and indirect applications from the techie scene, it just doesn't get the kind of press like consumer tech and the hacker scene tends to be at universities and learning hospitals.