Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Robotic Telesurgery by Remote Surgeons

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the does-it-hurt-when-i-do-*this* dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "In a few years, telesurgery performed by multi-armed robots remotely controlled by real surgeons located hundreds or thousands of kilometers away will become commonplace. Today, Canadian doctors from the Centre for Minimal Access Surgery (CMAS) are developing the technology for NASA. Their goal is to build a portable robotic unit that would be used in space missions, war zones and remote areas within five years. So far, the experiments already done in Canada and for NASA are extremely encouraging. But read more for additional details and pictures of a real surgeon controlling such a robot."

25 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Problems? by mr-mafoo · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Oh no! The connection's lagging doctor!"

    "Reconfigure the upstream bandwidth, and re-route all traffic to the backup server!"

    1. Re:Problems? by IgLou · · Score: 3, Funny

      Better yet, make the robot surgeons web accessible.

      Nurse: "Doctor the robo-surgeon seems to have crashed."
      Doctor: "Look on the display it says, nothing for you to see? What's going on"
      In bursts the network admin exclaiming: "The surgeon he's been... slashdotted!"

      --

      Oops, how did this get here?
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  2. A new thing you don't want to hear from your doc: by Cordath · · Score: 2, Funny

    Laaaaaag!

  3. Don't try that on the Internet until ... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... QoS hooks are in and solid.

    This is a very strong argument for tiered bandwidth - so ISPs can guarantee that surgical waldo packets take priority over, say, downloads of the latest release of an OS or a new movie.

    It's one thing to hiccup when you're handling a VoIP packet. It's quite another when you're handling the content of a feedback loop including a video camera, a surgeon, a scalpel, and a vital organ.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:Don't try that on the Internet until ... by shadowbearer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The system would be totally impractical for earth-bound surgeons to use for Mars trips. Even the moon, with a second and half lag one way, would introduce some bad problems.

        But it seems obvious to me, at least, that this would only be usable with dedicated links, and not over the internet, which is what a lot of others seem to be saying here. I doubt very much that any of the engineers involved have even considered using the public internet (at least I hope they haven't! :-)

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    2. Re:Don't try that on the Internet until ... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Isn't that What T1, OC3, etc. are for?

      Only if they're a TDM point-to-point or switched connection, or a virtual one using something like ATM. In which case it's not the Internet.

      It's connection-oriented, not packet-oriented (even if it's packets being carried,and they're being switched one at a time.) Connection-oriented networks give you a fixed(-maximum)-bandwidth connection with guaranteed delivery and guaranteed limits on latency and jitter.

      Packet switched networks can emulate this, but ONLY with QoS guarantees - guarantees on delivery, latency, and latency variation. That means some packets take precedence over others. They go to the head of the line. When there are too many packets these privileged ones get forwarded while others are dropped. And so on.

      This is NOT something you can build out of best-effort delivery and retransmission, as you build reliable (but variable speed and latency) connections out of unreliable ones using protocols like TCP.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    3. Re:Don't try that on the Internet until ... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's no real mention of what exactly they will be using, but I'd bet that "advanced telecommunications technology" doesn't mean internet.

      A QoS-enabled Internet would work just fine. And it's coming - unless misguided "Net Neutrality" laws throw the baby out with the bathwater.

      There are two aspects to "neutrality" and tiered bandwidth.

        - One is using it to distinguish services that need different levels of support - giving them what they need (and perhaps charging extra if appropriate), but treating all services requiring a particular QoS level (including your own) equally.

        - The other is using the tools to implement anticompetive practices, such as penalizing your competitors' packets or charging some customers extra just because they have deep pockets to be picked.

      The first lets a network provider combine guaranteed-QoS and best-effort traffic on a single network and give the best-effort traffic all the remaining bandwidth once the high-QoS stuff is serviced. This is massively cheaper than either of the alternatives: Separate networks, or a permanent bandwidth split on a single one, with the high-QoS partition large enough to handle the maximum load and its unused bandwidth left idle. This saving ends up going mainly to the network users, in the form of lower rates.

      The second is an anti-competitive practice and a worthy target of suppression - by "the invisible hand" if possible, perhaps by law if not.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  4. Awesome. by RoffleTheWaffle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now we can outsource the medical field to India, too. *rimshot*

  5. CounterStrike Surgeons by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Probably already been stated, but I can see it now...

    Doctor [Scalpel] Patient
    Doctor: WTF LAG

  6. Trouble by tocs · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh no, I thought the scalpel was moving away from the patient!!!

  7. How are they different from these guys... by joecm · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/

    1. Re:How are they different from these guys... by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Informative

      September 7, 2001 - ZEUS robotic system developed by Computer Motion was used in the trans-Atlantic operation. A doctor in New York removed the diseased gallbladder of a 68-year-old patient in Strasbourg, France.

      Apparently these guys are. I believe this is the story you heard...

      --
      What?
  8. what is the maximum allowed network latency by Rune+Tnnesen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a med student and sysadmin I just wondered over a couple of potentially isues

    What the maximum allowed network latency and thereby the maximum allowed operation distance be? Could somebody come with an answer?
    will it do for spacetravel?
    I mean they had to make the marsrovers autonomously, due to transmitting time.

    They say they will take it to the battlefield. Come on it is monstreus piece of equipment, with a weight of approx a ton. For what reason wil they take it to the battlefield.
    Not enough surgeons available at the frontline military service?
    They will still need staff at operation ward, nurses anesthesiologist and so on.

    We have a few of these robots at the university hospitals. Normally we have a group of surgens stading by just in case things goes wrong. We do not trust the machine totally.

    I really do hope they are hackerproff. What and opportunity to blackmail people.
    "Pay me or your husbend will end up without his left kneecap. Your VISA number please"

    Regards Rune

  9. Personally.. by Kelz · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm paying my doctor too much already to allow HIM to telecommute.

  10. Advantages and disadvantages... by kcbrown · · Score: 3, Informative
    Advantages: robotics can be extremely precise. If programmed properly, it can compensate for any twitchiness on the part of the operator.

    But the disadvantages are significant: the feel isn't the same as performing the surgery for real. Now, for certain types of surgery that problem isn't a problem, but the human hand is actually quite sensitive to pressures and other types of feedback that I'm sure are quite invaluable to a surgeon (IANAS, however). A machine can provide some of that feedback through the link but the amount of feedback will be limited by the sensory capability of the machine.

    So, like many things, I can see this being useful for a relatively limited set of surgical operations, while for others "being there" will remain necessary.

    That said, if I have to choose between having this and having nothing at all (a battlefield comes to mind for such a situation), I'd rather have this and I'll take my chances with the limitations...

    --
    Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
  11. The AMA? Maybe but there's bigger force... by WidescreenFreak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're forgetting the lawyers, though. Can you imagine what malpractice lawyers are going to think? Imagine them trying to sue a doctor who botched a remote surgery in a country with no kind of extradition treaty! I think that the trial lawyers of America would fight this more than the doctors if the goal is to "internationalize" medicine. Allowing remote surgeries will completely screw up many lawyer's ability to go for those higly lucrative malpractice lawsuits if the doctor is outside of the country's borders. But I'll bet that they would fight like crazy to allow it to be used domestically where the doctor and patient are both in the same country because of the ease of filing a lawsuit.

    Personally, with the exception of minor, routine surgery, there is no frickin' way I'd want anyone but a real doctor and real nurses right there with me. Even the slightest possibility of a network dropout while the scalpel is cutting is terrifying to say the least. I don't care how much redundancy there is between me and the remote doctor. There is no way to 100% guarantee a solid connection at any given time, although I'm sure that a number of /.ers would like to try to convince me otherwise. At least with a doctor right there I can hear him say, "Oops!" instead of trusting some doctor who can mute his microphone from a thousand miles away -- and, damn it, they better guarantee <1 ms response time! :)

    Honestly, I think that you asked the right question, but you asked it the wrong way.

    --
    The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
  12. Awake during surgery?? by technoextreme · · Score: 2, Interesting
    At least with a doctor right there I can hear him say, "Oops!" instead of trusting some doctor who can mute his microphone from a thousand miles away -- and, damn it, they better guarantee I don't know if I were to wake up and hear the doctor say opps during my surgery I would have to think it would be because I woke up in the middle of my surgery.
    --
    Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
  13. Re:A new thing you don't want to hear from your do by 0racle · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dr. Leroy Jenkins MD

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  14. What is it with Canadians by Winlin · · Score: 2, Funny

    and robotic arms? Are there secret Mech bases out there in the tundra or something? Well I for one welcome our remotely controlling, Molson dispensing overlords, eh.

  15. da vinci system by VoidEngineer · · Score: 2, Informative

    For more information on telerobotic surgery systems (they're a few years old now):

    http://www.teleroboticsurgeons.com/
    http://www.teleroboticsurgeons.com/davinci.htm
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1471286 6

  16. From the Western Redundancy Playhouse Theater... by shoolz · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wouldn't simply Robotic Telesurgery be an appropriate title? Wouldn't simply Robotic Telesurgery be an appropriate title?

  17. h@ck3d by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Funny

    All your spleen are belong to us

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  18. waldos can be good by hogghogg · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I didn't RTFA, but a thorassic surgeon I know told me that using a waldo in lung surgery can be very useful, because the machinery can scale down your motions, making it possible to perform extremely precise, tiny cuts and stitches, etc; for some operations a waldo is indispensible, apparently. I have to admit that this doesn't have much to say about the idea of remote operation, but I, for one, will welcome our scalpel-wielding aluminum overlords when I need some surgery.

    --
    David W. Hogg -- assoc prof, NYU Physics
  19. Long-distance heart operation this week by worf_mo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This week, a long-distance heart operation has been carried out. The operation was initiated and monitored in Boston, the surgery took place in Milan, Italy.

  20. Re:A new thing you don't want to hear from your do by srmalloy · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is going to bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".