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Heart Surgery By Robot
zebidee writes: "I've always been pretty amazed at the advances they continue to make in the field of medical science but this one really does take top prize. The BBC is reporting that the clever boffins at St. Mary's Hospital in London are preparing to use a new robotic arm to carry out heart bypass surgery using the da Vinci system developed by Intuitive Surgical. Read more about on the BBC News page. This really is the 21st century!"
The story ends with the surgeon sticking his hands in the autoclave in preparation for the operation ... and the glow reflects off his metal face ...
This individual is posting a bunch of "informative" links that happen to be the first things google has returned on the topic. They have done that several times, if you check their user info. One wonders whether they are trying to boost their karma so that they are able to troll at +2 . . .
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
>Last week when my friend broke his arm, he did a
>few miles on a treadmile, and nows he's back
>playing Squash!
>I'm poping in at lunchtime to get this genetic
>heart disorder fixed. I reckon 10 Miles on the
>cycle should do it.
You are overlooking the fact that the money spend on the surgery perhaps could save more lifes if used differently.
I am not saying that we shouldn't have any surgery at all, not even that we should not have robotic surgery, but operations can become so expensive that if used they will cause other people their life through negligence.
You just don't see those people complaining on tv because they are in good health.
Max M - IT's Mad Science
Surgery hasn't really added anything to public health on average. Only a few months added average lifespan.
... Hah! I laugh at robotic surgery. It's a dead end.
Clean water, high quality foods, preservatives, better housing and penicillin has been the real life savers. With average lifespans going from around 30 to around 70 years due to those.
So instead of using a lot of money on Robotic heart surgery it would be better to build health gyms. That would increase avg. lifespan more than C3PO with a knife.
Now that the genome is mapped there will be an explosion in proteomics (gene and protein) research and then we will start to get somewhere with cancer, virus and bacteria.
Come nano we can hopefull live for several hundred years.
Robotic surgery
But I hope it will be there if I ever need it.
Max M - IT's Mad Science
I don't know about others, but personally I would much rather have a human do heart sergery on me, then trust it to a robot. Granted, computers are great, and for things that are the same over and over they are good, but there is just to much that is different and can change from person to person. I don't think we currently (or ever probably) will have the technology to allow a robot to do open heart segery on a person.
As long as it's not being run by Kevin Warwick...
Yes we do. We have a whole range of electric toothbrushes, toothpicks, dental floss, whitening toothpastes and private dental health in the UK, thank you very much.
Sure, nobody buys any of the stuff, but it is available. :-)
Anyway, the main reason for having these robots controlled by a doctor is that there is a shortage of doctors in the UK. Using these, one doctor can perform surgery on many patients at the same time. All the patients are lined up next to each other, with their own robot, and the doctor lies in his jacuzzi with his robot controller and Quake III in front of him, and then surgery can proceed... Brings a new meaning to deathmatch for sure, but it increases the hospitals turnover no end, which gives it a high rating.
Why don't those other lamers read the article?
This is not a surgery robot, it is a waldo. OK, it is a very fancy, very cool waldo with nice features like scaling down movements for precision surgery, and automatically smoothing out shaking hands.
PS: please mod up this message's parent!
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Granted, not a new idea. The BBC article, although well written, mistakens it for a robot. It it not intelligent. It is merly an extention of the doctors hands. I think this is a great step in the right direction. The more development work in this area will help to reduce heal times and complications from surgy. Look at all the operations on peoples knees to replay a torn ACL. Before, you had scars up and down your knee. now, it is just two little dots, and the heal time is much faster.
Imagine what this can do for brain surgery. No more cutting the skull open.. just a small hole and work in there!
For those unfamilair with them, the RI lectures are a series of lectures, first started by Michael Farady, given by a distinguished scientist, for children. Even as an adult they continue to fascinate; this year they had Prof. Keven Warwick (one of the few people with "ex-cyborg" written in their CV ;-) talking about robots.
I still remember when I was a kid Carl Sagan giving the lectures - hopefully kids today are getting the same inspiration.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
I see my original post was modded down as redundant, even though it was the second post in this article and the first was a link to goatse.cx. Nice to see the moderation system works so well, eh?
-Legion
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Yeah, I agree.
Last week when my friend broke his arm, he did a few miles on a treadmile, and nows he's back playing Squash!
I'm poping in at lunchtime to get this genetic heart disorder fixed. I reckon 10 Miles on the cycle should do it.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Brings a whole new meaning to the word hack...
Bob the Martian
"Where there's a pyramid, there's a pint of fish"
But it's right to dismiss him because he's a media whore, doesn't back up his speculation with logic and still calls it science, and gives crap lectures with really bad demonstrations (i.e. can't even get a pendulum to work right).
Oh and he has a chip in his arm, which communicates with one in his wife's arm, and reads his muscle movements, and somehow makes him a cyborg. As Jeremy Paxman said in a radio 4 interview with him, "So it doesn't do anything a human couldn't"
Not average, maybe. But medicine is more worried about individual cases, where surgery on a child born with a hole in the heart (a fairly common condition, for childhood illnesses) adds 70 odd years. Plus surgery is used for fixing accidents and trauma, which will never go away.
...is one giant leap for space travel. This is an example of the type of technology we'll need if we ever want to go to Mars, let alone further. One of the major considerations for space travel is the health factor. If an astronaut breaks her leg or suffers a coronary, she'll need medical attention. If we could develop a faster means of communication through space, one of these remote-controlled surgeons could be the solution. That way, instead of just having one flight doctor, the astronauts could receive medical help from a conglomerate of surgeons and specialists. "Johns Hopkins, we have a problem..."
That the operating system running these things is NOT Microsoft Windows...
:) I wonder if the robot would know where it left off?
I can only imagine my robot surgeon getting a blue screen of death right in the middle of surgery... And if a reboot were to be only option to fix it
Sarcasm is the recourse of a weak mind...
--
I know nothing about surgery, but I wonder how much a surgeon relies on feel during delicate procedures. The da Vinci system certainly affords a far greater deal of precision than is normally available, but is this a factor that needs to be considered when designing these remote surgery systems?
I've never been to one of his lectures, but they can't be that bad since he was selected to present for the Royal institution.
Being a "media whore" doesn't make him wrong.
And having a chip in his arm does make him a cyborg. Its a piece of electronics which communicates directly with his body. What are your requirements? That he has his brain implanted into a robot body?
Admittedly, some of his specualtions are somewhat speculative. However, he is one of the worlds leading minds in the fields of robotics and cybernetics. He is also the worlds first cyborg. It would be wrong to dismiss him simply because you don't unsderstand his theories.
"Sir, are you classified as human?"
"Negative, I am a meat popsicle."
End of lesson. You may press the button.
ROSSLYN, Va., July 28, 1999
ABCNews.com December 17, 2000
siliconvalley.com Wednesday, July 12, 2000
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
all very nice to know when your fat ass suffers a heart attack
Naeser's Law:
That you like screaming?
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
maybe so, but there's a huge difference between a research facility like ohio state university doing it and st mary's, which is a "regular" hospital. plus it's in england, and they don't even have electric toothbrushes yet! hehehe ...
Asimov must be turning on his grave! What was the name of the story he wrote about the robot surgeon ? For the life of me...can't think about it right now... Peace...
Remove 'spam' to mail plz...
Never mind that, check out an even earlier story on robo-surgery (including the Da Vinci machine) in forbes, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2000/0306/6506159a.ht ml
Telepresence surgery - or telesurgery - has some advantages. Want a surgical team available 24/7 in your libertarian/anarcho-capitalist techno-compound in Montana? Just buy a daVinci unit or two, plug 'em into your OC3 switch, subscribe to a surgical outsourcing service, and you can receive world-class surgery for a bargain price, anytime. All you'll need is a couple of nurses to do the dirty work: setting bones, picking splinters out of your eye, etc. But there is a down side: Once inexpensive telesurgery units are available, every HMO will buy them in lieu of actual surgical staff. They'll outsource to the low bidder and pass the savings on to you - or maybe just keep it. "Welcome to TeleKnife Customer Service. Do you have a problem related to a surgery performed by TeleKnife? If you are bleeding profusely or slipping out of consciousness, press 1 now. If you think your newly transplanted organ is being rejected by your body, press 2. If you want to upgrade to a 1 year warranty on your recent surgical procedure, press 3..." NEXT STOP: Surgery from a vending machine. (Not responsible for lost quarters.)
I don't remember that part. Must be some uncorrectable memory errors.
Before I read the article, I was thinking along the lines of the scene in `Logan's Run' when the laser cosmetic surgery machine goes berserk.
In response to those who say they'd rather trust a human holding a scalpel: I think I'd prefer to stay healthy so I don't need the bypass surgery.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Yep. You're right. But, I'll still avoid robotic surgery.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Open source can have bugs too. It is more important that the thing is properly tested. And as far as I know the rules are pretty strict for medical software.
And as for windows, It wouldn't surprise me if they did use it for parts of the system. Probably the actual control software runs on some real-time OS, but there's more to complex systems like that than control software alone.
And you'd be wrong to assume that because of that the quality suffers. Using of the shelf components like MS windows in medical software greatly improves functionality of the system. I've heard of several examples where a windows based front-end complements control software written for some real time OS.
Jilles
I would guess that the surgeon has to take their job as seriously as if they were in the operating room hacking away directly on the patient (i.e., try and avoid random muscle spasms which might cause the scalpel to cut through important stuff).
If they're using haptic feedback (sense of touch & force feedback) then they probably are trying to set up some kind of proper hand/eye interface so that the surgeon can perform the normal types of movements that they are used to, and the robot will perform those same movements remotely (while transmitting back through the interface the same kinds of feelings that the surgeon would get if operating directly).
As for your last issue, there's no reason why the robot has to operate on a 1-to-1 scale of movement - in fact, with the proper feedback, going through the robot could increase the surgeon's margin of error quite a bit. (On the other hand, surgeons might start thinking that they'll be able to operate even after a 24-hour bender and they're shaking with the DTs - "just make those movements REAL slow, Bettie!").
I thought that had happened because the main computer had given instructions to the surgeon that he was supposed to kill Logan, so the surgeon programmed his laser-surgery machine to not perform the healing-part of the operation?
On the other hand, that one robot which was capturing people who tried to get to Sanctuary & turning them into food...
I can see the benefit of this in terms of comfort from the surgeons point of view during lengthy operations, and in reducing incision sizes, therefore reducing patient recovery times.
But, as this is still a device controlled by a human, are patients still susceptible to human error? For example, what happens if the surgeon slips and knocks the joystick while the robot arm is holding a scalpel? I haven't read the whole Da Vinci website so maybe I missed something, but are there any kind of built-in mechanisms to prevent sudden/eratic movements as opposed to slow/controlled movements?
This could pose a problem if surgeons are dealing with smaller incisions as there could be less margin for error.
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Moderator's essentials
Nurse: "Dr. Steele! He having an allergic reaction to the anesthesia! His blood vessels are dialiating! We're going to lose him!"
Dr. Steele:"Nurse Ratchet, do be a dear and give me some of that WD40... my back is killing me"
NR:"But Doctor..."
DS:"*puke*Your operation has caused a general protection fault at 0x12314324214..."
No thanks... I'll stick to the meat puppets, thank you.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
...of possible heart surgery by a tin man.
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
I recall a few years ago watching a video of the first prototype Protate Gland removal robot in action (in the company of an aging robotician who was due into hospital a couple of dfays later to have the said operation done, but in a more conventional fashion). Excruciating. Plently of eye-watering links from google
I'd love to see someone combine a couple foot pedals, a throttle, and two cyberman 3-D mice to come up with a joystick that works the same way. Of course, I'd also love to see two lemurs doing Vaudeville numbers on the 21st floor of the CSFB building in NYC. I guess I'm just weird like that.
--- Heeeeeeeeeere, FIDONet.... heeeeeeeeeer, FIDONet. Hey... where'd FIDO go?
I cannot beleive that they are using Royal's DaVinci PDA to run the thing.
- "Watch me frag this guy!"
- "The MP3 server is skipping again -- can you bump up its realtime priority?"
- "Oh shit! We're getting slashdotted!"
- "That pesky 'ph3ar me Y00 l8m3r' dialog box keeps popping up."
- "Fuck all these warnings, I'm taking '-Wall' out of the Makefile".
- "These Celerons are so great for overclocking."
- "Check it out -- that hot radiologist says she loves me! I better read this e-mail right now!"
- "Yeah, I'm running 2.5.3-pre7-ac12-dontuse. Why do you ask?"
And the #1 thing you don't want to hear in a bot-enhanced operating room:RoboSurgeons, from the Nov/Dec 2000 issue. Complete with pictures and links.
This reminds me the novel by Arthur C. Clarke: Rama; where a robot surgeon cuts the spaceship personnel into peaces because it is not programmed to stop when anything unexpected happens (like the ship bumping into something)...
Donate free food to the hungry at The Hunger site.
Here are a few things I found while reading about this a few months ago. What's interesting is this stuff is already in prototype in China and some other medical institutions. enjoy!
s urgery.ap/
s ia/china-15-11-00_01.htm
_ 7252000.html
0 7/24/newscolumn1.html
t ml
http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/10/24/robot.heart.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/regionalnews/easta
http://www.abcnews.go.com/local/wabc/oncall/40340
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_69581.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2000/
http://www.office.com/global/0,2724,61-17731,FF.h
http://dross38040.users2.50megs.com/page28.html
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
Robot Surgery by Heart?
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"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
My girlfriend is a PHD student, and she is currently doing research in medical technology. Recently she's had a demonstration of this device. After that demonstration, they were allowed to handle the machine and try some manipulations.
From what I understood:
1. This is not an intelligent robot, but a tool for the surgeon. Sensors are connected to the surgeons hands and arms, and they are transmitted to the operational device. It still is the surgeon which does the operation.
2. Resistance, which I saw mentioned in one of the other responses, is simulated to the surgeon doing the operation. Thus, a more 'natural' feel is created.
3. This device and devices like it are great tools for Minimal Invasive Surgery (MIS). Because the opening doesn't have to be large at all, and devices can be sterilized, this greatly reduces the risk of infection.
4. If developments continue along this line, and there is no reason to believe they won't, operation rooms may become obsolete for many operations: a closed sterile device is pressed against the area where the opening has to come. All that has to be sterile is the insides of the operation device.
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the pun is mightier than the sword