Scrubbing Up For Robotic Surgery In Space

[zavvy]

<b>Scrubbing Up For Robotic Surgery In Space </b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />A team of four astronauts are to “splashdown” to an undersea laboratory in the US on Monday, to help conduct the first wireless robot-assisted surgery. Meanwhile in Canada - 2000 kilometres away from the operating table - a surgeon prepares to perform the procedures, to be carried out on Tuesday.<br /><br />This will be the first time that surgical procedures, performed from a vast distance away, will utilise airwaves rather than undersea cables to transmit the information, says surgeon Tim Broderick of the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, who will be taking part in the NASA experiment, dubbed NEEMO 7.<br /><br />Although the procedures, which include a gall bladder removal, will actually be carried out on a surgical training dummy, the NASA experiment is being seen as a crucial proof-of-principle. If the surgery is successful, it is hoped that astronauts will eventually be allowed to receive emergency surgical care while aboard the International Space Station (ISS).<br /><br /><br />Under the sea <br /><br /><br />Surgeon Mehran Anvari of the Centre for Minimal Access Surgery at St Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, will be using the Zeus robotic surgical system to control the robot in the Aquarius lab, 19 metres under the sea, in Key Largo, Florida. Zeus has two robotic arms and an endoscopic arm, which can be controlled by the surgeon from a console of monitors and joysticks. <br /><br />“The Aquarius is a very good analogue for the space station,” says Broderick. Just as in space, he says, it can take time to get a patient back to solid ground when they need emergency surgery underwater. “They have to decompress for a day before they can come up,” he says.<br /><br />The dilemma is whether the ISS should be equipped with a telerobot rather than having to bring an astronaut down to Earth when they need surgery. Flying

 

[CalliArcale]

Wow! Now that's fascinating!<br /><br />Robotic surgery is going to be neccesary eventually, and could be lifesaving for situations where the right surgeon isn't in the right city. It could be a lifesaver in field hospitals too, or on remote expeditions to places like Antarctica. (Getting out of Antarctica can be impossible at certain times of the year.)<br /><br />It's also interesting to think about what to do if the link or the robot goes down and other crewmen have to be talked through the procedure. A little scary, too. It's not like talking somebody down in an airplane, after all. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>