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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.
This is an absurd abuse of technology to further a doctor's career. There is no chance that this surgery was in the best interest of the 68 year old patient. Gall bladder surgery is reasonably common and could have been performed by any of a number of local doctors. This was *all* about getting a publication - which is sick. And I don't want to hear about how this technology will revolutionize anything, because the amount of logistical preparation needed on both sides will always make it easier to just fly a specialist to the scene and have her/him operate on the patient.
The best quote from the article...
"The time delay between the surgeon's movements and the return video image displayed on screen was less than 200 milliseconds. The estimated safe lag time is 330 ms."
Estimated safe lag? As determined by who? The NIST? The AMA? Probably the doctor, immediately after hearing that the time delay was 200ms.
-Rothfuss
I'll probably get modded off-topic here, but back in the QuakeWorld days, I got pretty good on dial-up. When I got a fat pipe (college LAN), it took me a couple weeks to regain that. I was so tuned into anticipating the moves and compensating for the lag that I had on a modem that without it, I looked like a spaz.