The Human-Digital Interface Part 4

In February the BBC did a series on various technological devices that are having an impact currently on our medical culture and those that are on the drawing board . Many of these devices are already developed for usage in the medical industry for uses that seem like they are from a Star Trek episode. One of the most interesting areas that computers and robots are having an impact on medicine is in the surgery suite. The University of Amsterdam has been fine tuning the use of a robotic arm controlled by a computer to allow for remote surgery. The device would allow a surgeon in Hong Kong to use a "joy stick- like" device to perform surgery on a patient in Brazil. The robotic device is so precise and flexible that it can do incisions more accurately than a human surgeon.The "real" human surgeon will be able to "feel" the instrument and feel the incision as if they were doing the surgery, even though it will be a virtual cut.The sensitivity of the "joy stick" device allows the actual surgeons hand to have the same sensitivity of making the incision. The Dutch inventors call this relationship between the robotic arm and the actual user , the "master-slave" model. The robotic arm has a computer that allows for fine use, fine cuts and filters any trimmer in the actual users hand. The device would also allow the surgeon to perform suturing as well, hold a needle and to perform the operation. The Device has already been used in retinal eye surgery and reduces risks done under the human held "knife". But, even more advanced technologies will permit even smarter computers to make the operational "decision" as to how to make an incision independently based on the "mapping" of an individuals anatomy and will calculate the diseased organs based on normal pre-downloaded anantomical mapping. Every contingency of making an incision and knowing the difference between normal anatomy from the diseased portion will already be downloaded so that the computer can make more indpendent determinations of how to perform the surgery with the robotic sterotopic arm . The physician will be the "back -up" to the computer. At Brown University, "holographic surgery" will make these possiblities a reality. The University's computer engineering department takes a multi-dsciplnary approach by using bio-technicians, computer engineers, bioegineers, psychologist, bio-ethicist and other professionals to make biomedical devices that will allow paraplegics to walk and the blind to "see" via bio-tech. The Brown team is designing a computer to act and think like a brain with its Erstaz Program. Virtual reality devices will become more common especially in the use in the medical world daily.