Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Surgeons Perform Telerobotic Surgery
AndroidCat writes "While the equipment used isn't new, this operation was different because one of surgeons was 400km away. Dr. Mehran Anvari in Hamilton Ontario tele-operated instruments in North Bay General Hospital, supervised by Dr. Craig McKinley on site. The link was over a high priority routed Bell Canada connection. The patient, Ms. Fortier is doing quite well. Don't try this from home with a dialup connection."
Sooner or later, an operation like this is going to fail. When questioned, the doctor will respond, "omfg!!!!! fucken lag!!!!!"
We already use micro-manipulators to do things so fine that we humans find it hard to control our own hands to do. There are many things a machine just does much better than we can.. things like zoom vision, ability to see from angles where we can not get our heads to, and doing precision tasks. Ever tried to make stitches as precise as a sewing machine?
The business end of the machines can be much smaller than our fingers, and tools on the machine are designed expressly for needed things. None of this "hand me the scapel, nurse" stuff. The machine can have as many arms and tools as the designers deem necessary.
And the machines can be made absolutely sterile. It is really hard to sterilize a human, and still have us functional.
It is really a tiny, very tiny, step from going to having a surgeon sitting next to a patient doing the surgery, to having one on the other side of the world doing it... ( the main problem is latency ).
The biggest advantage to the patient is that his need of surgical services may happen at any time - what it means is there is a world-wide pool of surgeons available to help - right now. They do not need to get scrubbed. If they are a critical care surgeon, by golly, they may have their end right in their den at their personal residence. Even if the surgeon was in a most unsanitary condition at the time of need, that would not be a factor. Time is. And that is what this technology gives us. Who is best equipped to meet the need... NOW.
This is what dreams are made of. This is why we go to work. To make things like this.
This is why we need technology.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
This is probably the killer app. Being a med student myself (and having just watched Scrubs) I think the ability to have someone watching over your shoulder during an important operation would greatly assist confidence during learning surgical procedures -- especially during unusual times of the morning when the hospital is understaffed etc., and you're the house surgeon lumped with everyone walking in the door.
However, allowing dangerous operations to be undertaken in remote locations is probably not a great idea... without qualified staff physically on hand, I don't think you'd want to trust someone's life to an IP connection; otherwise, the next time some DDoS or Outlook worm strikes, servers aren't the only thing we lose.
Wait a minute...it's not like there was a lady on an operating table, being prodded by a robot and no-one around save perhaps a pimply-faced computer geek to make sure everything was going well. There WAS a doctor overseeing events at the site. Conversely, it's not like the doctor on the other end was lounging by the pool, tweaking the trackpoint of his IBM ThinkPad. This technology wouldn't be used on a person unless it was proven safe and the benefits for outweighed possible risks (also, remember they weren't doing brain surgery on their maiden voyage--it was surgery to correct an acid-reflux problem, so if there were problems the risk of death would be quite low).
You're right--400 km isn't exactly a cross-continent trek, but keep in mind that a round trip by car would eat up eight hours of a skilled surgeon's time (and time is money), and even flying would take a few hours. Also, remember the surgery was in North Bay and performed by a doctor in Hamilton. North Bay isn't exacly a metropolitan hub--there's maybe what...50,000 people there? I don't think there are gonna be direct flights leaving hourly from Hamilton. Besides, do you know what the weather has been like in Ontario lately? Cold and horrible! Flight schedules aren't going to be reliable, and driving 400 km through a blizzard would be quite treacherous!
The next step is to start using this technology in places like Yellowknife. Yellowknife! Not exactly the kind of place that's teeming with specialised surgeons, and a doctor in Toronto can't easily hop a train, plane or taxi there, nor can the patient be safely relocated to Toronto without great expense and risk. You'd have to hop a 727 in Toronto to Edmonton, a lear jet to Ft. McMurray and a turboprop to Yellowknife (at best you might be able to avoid the stopover in Ft. McMurray)--or else spend a great deal of taxpayer's money in an already strained socialised haelthcare system on a special private direct flight.
Yup, telesurgery starts to look pretty appealing if you've been suffering on a long waiting list typical of the healthcare system in Canada, and it offers you the chance to get it done not only properly, but much sooner as well.
And if we put a taxi driver out of a job who the hell cares--he's probably an immigrant with 10 years of medical training and a long history of performing surgery in Pakistan, scaping out a living until all the immigration bullshit has been shoveled and he can get certified to work as a doctor in Canada. Maybe the money saved with this technology can make that process go faster so he can "do surgery by the pool" with Dr. Anvari. That old farmer in Cowcrap, Saskatchewan who needs his hernia fixed might appreciate the resulting shorter waiting time too...