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Gall Bladder Removed In France By Doctor In New York
cybaea writes: "In this article, the BBC reports on the first successful major telesurgical operation. Doctors in the United States removed a gall bladder from a patient in eastern France by remotely operating a surgical robot arm." Note that this was using a "high speed optical link," not competing with email, viruses, or other things being sent on the Internet. Update: 09/19 17:05 PM GMT by T : Uh, that's "gall bladder," not "tumor." From this distance they look the same to me.
Here's a pic of the robot in action. Looks like that gall bladder was pretty big, or the frenchwoman isn't what I'd call "underweight".
Notice the three large arms sticking in? Gall Bladder surgery is usually arthroscopic. So, long distance surgery does have the drawback of more/bigger scars.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
(from the BBC article)
The procedure could make it possible for a surgeon to perform an operation on a patient anywhere in the world.
Sure... anywhere in the world equipped with a surgery-performing-robot, a secure guarenteed-to-be-up data line, and a team of backup doctors in case anything goes wrong.
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The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
If you figure 3000 miles both ways, then we're talking a minimum 0.03 seconds of lag. When you figure all the overhead, plus you don't get perfect speed, that could be a 0.1 seconds. That seems pretty significant if you are doing delicate surgery. It would be even worse if it was across the world.
As John Carmack once said, "The speed of light sucks".
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.