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UK Docs Perform First Remote-Control Heart Surgery
ByronScott writes "Doctors at a British hospital have just carried out the world's first surgery using a remote-controlled robot. The procedure fixed a patient's irregular heart rhythm, and although the doctor was in the same hospital as the patient — just through the wall in another room — developers of the RC surgery technology believe this is the first step toward long-distance operations. Imagine a doctor in London performing surgery on your heart in New York!"
in the middle of a critical action during a life threatening operation. I'd also be worried about lag as one would assume that some surgical procedures require timely precision.
Until I can get reliably get pings low enough to play intercontinental TF2, I won't want anyone playing Operation Online in my guts, thanks.
London and NY? More likely, imagine NHS outsourcing to India, China, lowest bidder etc....
Simply put, they are building the machinery to allow the cutting, but the next step will be to replace the physical ppl. What that translate into, a guaranteed job USE to be a medical doc. The future says no.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If we're talking about heart surgery that happens while your heart is stopped, then a transatlantic session wouldn't be a problem, but 100 ms latency links plus moving parts are a bad combination.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
I would love to see that comment modded funny... Sadly I think +5 (all too likely to happen) is more reasonable.
RTFH: This claims to be the world first heart surgery performed remotely. Your link is for a gall bladder removal.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
" Imagine a doctor in London performing surgery on your heart in New York!"
Yeah, that might happen. Or it might just go the way things already are moving and see some outsourcing to China and India. Which wouldn't have to be all that bad, since (a) you get Western hygiene and staff during the operation and while recovering, and you (may/might) get the benefit of a doctor who treats 10 patients a day and is really, really experienced. This is actually a good reason for Chinese people in The Netherlands to go to China for certain procedures, like operations on joints and other non-life threatening stuff. Whereas a Dutch doctor might treat a few patients a week with and never see arare complication, his Chinese colleague will treat a dozen a day and is likely to have handled that complication several times in the last month. And in this type of surgery, experience matters.
Where I see most use for this though, is to get an expert online for a very difficult surgery, who does the really tricky stuff then leaves the opening and closing procedures to the staff at hand. I think the military might be the biggest users for this type of machinery.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Why not -1 Bigot?
Think about enhanced reality. No shaky hands, no rubber gloves, surface-track a beating heart and the surgeon could operate as though it weren't even moving. Scale reality to 100x, and arteries become sewer pipes.
But yeah, I don't really understand the tele-part of this. It seems like it would only be useful in the scenario that a remote hospital has a state-of-the-art medical facility with robotic surgeons and for some reason doesn't have a heart surgeon on hand.
It's not the equipment, it's the surgeon. Depending on the type of procedure, some surgeons can be highly specialized in a specific kind of surgery. Even the large medical centers don't always have all the specialists on staff at all times.
So $1'000'000 for the robot is a lot cheaper for a regional-level center than maintaining a dedicated surgical staff who are trained in every kind of specialized surgery. Furthermore, specialists need to practice, and in a smaller hospital they may not get enough cases to maintain their specialization. Remote control would allow a hospital to draw on the the expertise of a much wider variety of specialists than they themselves can staff, even if they limit the operations to a radius of 20ms ping (say 200 miles away).