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Doctor Performs Amputation By Text Message
Peace Corps Online writes "Vascular surgeon David Nott performed a life-saving amputation on a boy in DR Congo following instructions sent by text message from a colleague in London. The boy's left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous; there were just 6in (15cm) of the boy's arm remaining, much of the surrounding muscle had died and there was little skin to fold over the wound. 'He had about two or three days to live when I saw him,' Nott said. Nott, volunteering with the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, knew he needed to perform a forequarter amputation requiring removal of the collar bone and shoulder blade and contacted Professor Meirion Thomas at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, who had performed the operation before. 'I texted him and he texted back step by step instructions on how to do it,' Nott said."
I long ago discovered my text-messaging device allows me to talk directly to another person through his or her text-messaging device. Amazing!
And, not only is this more efficient and accurate, it costs far less. Imagine the lives that could be saved if doctors were given instructions for talking through these text-messaging devices. I, for one welcome the emergence of these devices and their new-found features.
He intended to do a prostate exam, so it's not quite as good as it sounds.
Taken from the text logs:
MK UR FST CT ALNG CLR BON WTH STRLZD RZR K?
Things got a little dangerous when another text message came in from his wife mid operation.
U WANT LEG OR SHOLDER CUT FOR DINR?
Heh, but still some great work. It's tragic though that there's still a dearth of medical facilities in some countries and life-saving make-do operations like this are common. Kudos to Medicines Sans Frontiers for doing what our own governments should be doing.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Spoken like somebody who's never needed to pay the astronomical roaming charges or put up with the hideous interference and quality loss on a voice call.
Sometimes text is faster and cheaper, because you're not spending 90% of the call going "What? Please repeat!"
Text message will ensure that all the details get there, not some garbled, half-heard phone call. You also get all the information already available if you need to look back at it quickly and it's in neat understandable writing (anyone who's ever read a doctor's scrawl will know what I mean). For this purpose (transmitting a technical procedure step by step) it's the better of the two media.
What exactly _is_ the emoticon for 'cut off limb X'?
Text message will ensure that all the details get there
But none of the vowels.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
DN: hai r u awake?? im wrkn, ths guys missn heaps of his arm, wwyd?
MT: lol sup? tru tru... kk well ur guna need 2 do a 4 1/4 amp. req rm of the cola bone n shlda blde.
DN: yea nm nm...... ok so txt me how
MT: ok is he there now?
DN: no im at home
MT: txt me wen u get there k?
I heard the doctor actually texted full instructions on how to reattach the arm but after 151 characters it got cut off.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Verizon takes an arm and leg for text messages every month, so amputation by text message isn't anything new.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
>>I long ago discovered my text-messaging device allows me to talk directly to another person through his or her text-messaging device. Amazing!
You mean those wireless devices which replaced the devices which ran over wires which were originally built to text messages to each other in morse?
This is one of my favorite things about SMS. *When* the data arrive, they arrive intact.
I got my first cell phone about one year ago. I know, I know, but I really don't need one for normal communications. I just need it to place emergency calls. However (and since my prepaid arrangement allows free incoming texts), I was curious about this whole "texting" thing (which I would probably never use with another person), so decided to figure out just what is really happening. I discovered that most USA cell carriers have a text to email gateway.
Since the text messages are essentially email, I first decided to hack up a Python script that would alert me via text of any inclement weather. A simple NOAA weather data gatherer, parser, and sender to my SMS to email gateway has saved my ass numerous times. Really. And for a $10 TracPhone, that's not too bad. Of course this is not on par with doing surgery, but I thought it was pretty cool. I didn't stop there, though.
Since my carrier *does* in fact have a text to sms gateway, the communication can go two ways. Is it possible to create an *unsecure* remote shell so that I can give my home computer commands while away? Why not..? And so friends, in brief, text messages *do* in fact have use other than LOLing ur BFF, and doing remote surgery... You can monitor your torrents, and fetch new ones, kick your pesky friend off your wireless connection, write a new cron job, the possibilities are arbitrary... Just don't let anyone use your phone...
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
WASSUP CUT ARM STCH SKN ! BL0D. LOL
a b c d e f g
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It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Did you somehow miss the part where he was calling from Africa to the UK? Have you never priced an international call?
Assume that you're an Orange customer. (It's the first UK cell phone provider I could think of off the top of my head.) Roaming in Africa and calling England costs £1.20/minute (or over $1.75/minute) if you have the Orange Travel plan.
Texting is much, much cheaper. In fact, in Africa, it's the dominant form of cell phone communication because voice rates are so ridiculously high in comparison even among local carriers, according to a family member who spent several months there on a mission trip.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Not so long ago, there was a story about a pilot who was guided into landing by an air-traffic controller through a series of text messages after all the plane's electrical systems failed.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
What the article fails to mention is that all the plane's electrical systems failed because the pilot was using his cell phone.
Anyone got a light for my sig?
The doctor in England had done the procedure before, presumably successfully, whereas the textbook could make no such guarantee. Plus, as you said, the doctor in the DRC could ask him to clarify.
And you're right, it's not that funny, or alarming. What it is is fraking badass and awesome. I mean, they both had the skills to pull off an amputation by text message. That's some serious medical street cred right there, on both sides!
Plus, they saved a kid's life. Good for both of them! *raises glass*
What it is is fraking badass and awesome.
Actually that is awesome. And somewhat badass. Though not fraking badass and awesome.
Fraking badass and awesome would be for example when Dr Leonid Rogozov removed his own appendix at Vostok Station in Antarctica in 1961. Of course when your own ass is on the line, your ability to perform suck fraking badass and awesome feats generally increases exponentially.