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Robotic Surgery
Raven42rac writes "Interestling article on my local newspaper's website dealing with a remote controlled, voice controlled, three dimensional surgery assisting robot."
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it's more fun to do an endoscopy with a controller-it's a robot, technically, but when you're performing the procedure, you can pretend you're playing "Small Intestine Wars." (for doctors only of course)
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
This is TRUELY revolutionary by relation to all of those 2 dimensional robots I see around.
So, how does the doctor work with a 3 dimensional robot? Do you draw funny glasses on him?
voice controlled, three dimensional surgery assisting robot.
Hmm, has anyone ever seen a two dimension robot? Or four dimensional for that matter?
I attend UC Santa Barbara, and I work on the student newspaper, the Daily Nexus. We did an article on the technology and the company responsible for it a long time ago when Computer Motion made it's first attempt at telesurgery. Here's the article, yes, that's my name in the byline.
http://www.dailynexus.com/science/2001/1555.html
We use these at work and they are very good -- Intuitive Surgical and Computer Motion both have systems that are getting use in ORs all over the place.
The only drawback is the cost and training, but once you've spent the million dollars to get it, you open up a lot of opportunities for surgical education and easing the burdon on doctors (as well as removing all notions of "distance" from the question of timely assistance).
For those wondering about the voice control, it only recognizes a dozen commands, and is totally speaker-independant. You'd say "Aesop...Move in" and it will move the camera in a few millimeters. The nice thing is that you can save positions and pricisely jump back and forth at looking in different areas in a half-second. It does have pressure sensors, so you can't do too much acidentally.
Also, realize that sometimes you can spend literally 16+ hours on one surgery -- having the robot do the direct manipulation means you can switch surgeons every few hours or get up and walk around without letting go of the surgical instruments and possibly abrading something while handing them off.
After watching a few dozen of these surgeries, i'd honestly say that i'd rather have my gall bladder removed by hermes/aesop/Zeus/daVinci than by a surgeon's hands...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Or you could require a packet come through for every millimeter of the cut.
These kinds of things usually use embedded, real-time systems, tailor-made for that specific hardware, and mathematically proven not to crash.
So no, it probably doesn't run windows.
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.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
First a 3 dimensional monitor, now a three dimensional robot?!?!
Good lord, pretty soon we're going to have 3d plants, trees, maybe even people!!!
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
To me this machine sounds very much like a back-hoe, except that it makes motions smaller and more precise instead of larger and more powerful.
Does it say
"Please sate the nature of the medical emergency"
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
The questions we are all holding back:
:/
a) Does it run Linux?
b) Can you get an aimbot or other cheat codes?
c) How many stupid questions are there?
d) Is it depressed?
e) Is it's name Data?
Man I am tired
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
I did not spell interesting "interestling" in my post, Michael :p
I hate sigs.
"Dammed hackers! Now, put my fucken eyeball back in my head instead of my ass!"
Table-ized A.I.
if its running windows (as it probably will :) ), the 'blue screen of death' will be so much more literal.
In this case it is the "blue line of death".
Table-ized A.I.
Why can't they put something like this in the International Space Station to do experiments instead of expensive, risky humans?
Table-ized A.I.
Just wait a few years and pirate copies will appear in Asia that allow one to do self-surgery if you hook up an NC machine or Lego Mindstorms (use supergrlue) to your PC.
Imagine going through a drop-down menu with items like "Historectomy", "Lobotomy", etc.
Table-ized A.I.
Uh oh.
.. a little more .. AAGH! FUCK! Wait! NO! Don't do THAT! Crap! DAMNIT! Someone turn this thing off! NO! NOT THAT THING!"
"A little to the left
Heh. Sounds like trouble.
The whole thing is computer-assisted gimmickry.
Computer Motion has been pushing this system for a long time.
It's just a way of selling really expensive toys to surgical centers
that want to "look" cutting edge.
The Hermes voice recognition is clunky.
most of the hardware running this thing is over eight years old.
Sure, if the doc is trained on it, they can make it do things
but it really de-augments the surgeon's abilities.
Like tying a brick onto a pencil. You can write with
it, but certainly not any better than before, and
probably much worse.
If you're doing component placement on some pc boards
or manipulating other consistent man-made items, robotics
work well. Working on wetware is a whole other thing.
Every case is different. Stuff moves, sags, and flows.
A surgeon with good hands can be quicker and much
more precise. It's all about the surgeon's heightened
senses of touch, vision, hearing, even smell.
This thing only gets in the way.
It does Computer Motion and it's OEMS a lot of money though.
The cameras, voice control box, the arm and it's
attachments, training will run you way past a quarter Mil
for each surgical suite. It does everything but give the best
in patient care. It also makes for slick copy in the annual report.
Think about something much simpler like cutting your food
and feeding yourself. Now imagine doing it with voice control
and a joystick. Sure you could eventually learn to do it, but
how much more efficiently and skillfully can you do it using
your hands, a knife and fork?
Point that thing someplace else.
So this is at least 2 years out of date - a long time in cutting edge technological terms. What next on the front page of Slashdot - the pentium 3 arrrives? Just because it's the first time its been used in a sleepy rural town doesn't change its redundancy.
The robot though is apparently great - you can tell it to remember positions (e.g. a camera position for a good view of something) and then, later, just tell it to go back to position A or whatever, and you get it in exactly that same good view. And it doesn't tire or move, which can be a problem in long operations when you are holding up the big fat liver and big fat bosom of some big fat fatty who needs their gallbladder out because every big mac hurts, and is too fat for keyhole surgery.
In a few years when the operation is done entirely by the robot, with no human intervention whatsoever, then I'll be impressed. Unfortunately, I'll also have to get a new job.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Here at Mayo, we have performed the most RRP's (radical retropubic prostatectomies) than anywhere in the world. We have the largest database of patients that have had them out. So we have some authority to make these recommendations. It was not 1 month ago that the chair of the department, another surgeon and I were discussing this and the conclusion was that for the next year or two we can't offer prostatectomy removal by da vinci and offer the same low degree of complications as you can offer with RRP.
In prostate removal, the primary goal is removavl of the cancer. Secondary goals are preservation of quality of life such as 1)continence - the ability to control your urine and 2)erections - preservation of the nerve pathways at time of surgery. Since the nerve pathways run past the seminal vesicles directly next to the prostate it requires delicate excision to preserve these. You won't enjoy the same success statistics for quality of life if you have your prostate removed by robot right now.
Hiccups?
Burps
Farts
Sneezes
Remember the "good ole days" when someone wanted to invent the voice-activated DVD player? You'd watch Top Gun, they guy would shout "EJECT EJECT EJECT" and the disk would come shooting out the machine at 200 miles an hour!
No, I wouldn't trust it, either.