ARD Documentary: Medicine of Tomorrow

Documentary | 45 min. | ARD (MDR, RBB, WDR) | Hoferichter & Jacobs

“Really good explainer television. The documentary is an interesting journey of discovery into the innovations of tomorrow’s medicine. At the same time, Eckart von Hirschhausen remains serious and avoids anything sensational.”
-FOCUS

Genetic engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Brain-Machine Interfaces, and Climate Catastrophe: For the accompanying documentary to the new Charité season, I’ve taken on the directorial role alongside Nicolas Hecker. In “Medicine of Tomorrow,” we embark with Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen on an exciting journey to researchers and patients in Berlin and Bonn, Magdeburg and Marburg, Weimar and Paris – and learn much about high-tech and intelligent computers, but also about surprisingly simple things that could improve our health in the future.

With the start of the new ARD season “Charité,” medic, presenter, and science journalist Eckart von Hirschhausen gets up close and personal with the “gods in white coats” and questions what advances medicine holds for our future. The future is always just a heartbeat away. These advances now enable the use of new techniques in previously hopeless situations, such as with ALS or muscle weakness. But also, Artificial Intelligence for demanding diagnoses or the revolutionary gene scissors, which make medical treatment down to the human genome possible, can – and will – optimize human health and prolong lifespan. Are we meddling with God’s work?

Eckart von Hirschhausen embarks on a fascinating journey of discovery into the groundbreaking innovations of medicine and the big question that humanity is grappling with: Is eternal life possible and desirable? In doing so, he engages in unorthodox conversations with top medical professionals, meets nursing staff, people on the fringes of society, and even a researcher from the USA who believes she has discovered the secret of immortality. “Medicine of Tomorrow” is a cinematic journey to the heart of the question of eternal and healthy life.

Watch the film online (German only), available until 03/05/2026