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Playing Video Games Makes For Better Surgeons
Steve Wallach writes "ABC News on line is reporting that surgeons that play video games at least three hours a week make 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and complete the surgery 27% faster than their non-video game playing colleagues. '"I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49, who demonstrated the results of his study Tuesday at Beth Israel Medical Center.'"
You would be amazed how much orthopedic surgery is really like being a carpenter!
The bone saws are amazingly powerful and kinda chainsaw like.
Even cooler are the body suits that the orthopedic docs where to keep from getting themselves infected from all the flying debri.
IAAD, and here's the deal:
Laparoscopic surgery is done with instruments, but they are not usually "remote controlled." You may be confusing this procedure with remote-controlled robotic surgery.
The procedure goes like this:
Patient is put under anesthesia, and the surgeon chooses his port sites based on the procedure to be performed (gallbladder, etc). Once the patient is out, their belly is insuflated with carbon dioxide (gives the surgeon more room to work). There is a camera involved, but the surgeon actually uses long instruments that fit through the trochars he placed through the 2 or 3 holes he made in the abdominal wall. The instruments are simply long... they are not remote controlled.
If you've got the choice, Lap-surgery is preferable to a conventional "open" case... the recovery time is much less. If you've ever had surgery, you know how much it hurts to have your abdomen opened... little things like coughing hurt for weeks. That said, some things require speed, exposure, room to work, and are safer if done open... your complicated aortic aneurysm repair is better done open.
BTW, the surgeon will usually reserve the right to convert the procedure to an "open" case... if you have a heavily calicified gallbladder (a so-called "porcelian gallbladder") he may have to cut you open just to get it out... only so much fits through those little trochars.
Just FYI
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I did my master thesis in computer science in this area. We made a system to automatically segment and visualize the vessels in the brain. One usage was for Laparoscopic surgery, albeit they mostly use the system as a pre-operation planner.
Anyway, my point is, that the methods we used for the visualization isn't that far away from what is used in modern game development. We also aimed to show as many polygons as possible, animated and shaded, on the screen at once, like modern 3D games.
The model wasn't that complex, so our home made engine had no problem viewing it in real time, but I see no problem in using a game engine such as Quakes to visualize medical data.
Underholdning.info
The fastest _surgical_ leg amputation on record occured on a British navy ship in the 1800's and took 11 seconds with a saw and bucket of hot pitch. Oh, and the surgeon's assistant lost two fingers as well I believe. The patient survived the operation, tho I don't know what happened afterwards.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
but some of Napoleon's surgeons would have loved to have had access to a chainsaw.
Some of those surgeons singlehandedly did hundreds of amputations in a single day... and it wasn't exactly a gentle procedure. Four or five burly lads held you down, while the surgeon used a knife to quickly divide the soft tissues around the bone, and a bone saw to complete the amputation. A bit of cautery, and the next patient was brought forward...
Seems brutal by today's standards, but that's how lives were saved... a soldier with a gangrenous limb almost always died... a soldier with an amputation before infection could set in had a chance of survival. Remember that this was long before antibiotics were available.
Do a Google search for Jacques Lisfranc: to this day, some foot injuries are still named after him. Dominique-Jean Larrey is another name you might try.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
are not so much to protect the surgeon... they're to protect the patient.
They are most often worn during total joint replacements... if that artificial joint gets infected and colonized with bacteria (one of the most-feared complications of orthopedic surgery), it cannot be sterilized with antibiotics... it must be taken out in a second operation.
Orthopedic surgery redo's are a difficult surgical challenge, particularly in the setting of infection. The space suits are for the patients, not the surgeons.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Besides, the computer does most of the aiming these days anyway.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
No, no. It's before. What they do is called "sign your site", they are to mark the site of the surgery with their initials/signature before the patient is put under and verify it with them (or since you don't remember it, maybe they do so and have a second person verify that the site is correct). Very important in cases where left and right matter (eg. removing a diseased kidney or repairing an injured knee, you want to make sure you cut into/remove the correct one).
Sure, you laugh, but I know of a doctor who had a heart attack during a surgery he was performing. He kept going, and completed the operation though.
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