Surgeons: Operate With Kinect

Robotic Surgery Assistant

A group of Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind. developed a robotic system that acts as a surgery assistant providing the surgeon with the correct tools using gesture and voice commands. Starting as a 'joke' during a brainstorm to build a robotic nurse, but now an international research project. 
Check it out on youtube:

http://youtu.be/s8eTLT1QexM

Also check out the coverage on IEEE Spectrum: Profile: Juan Wachs

CARS 2013

The coming days I will be attending the CARS 2013 in Heidelberg, Germany. I will mainly focus my attendence of scientific sessions to the EuroPACS part and the digital OR developments. For more information keep a look on this blog for the coming days.

CARS is running from June 26-29, 2013. For more information visit their website.

3D printing is really entering the medical arena

Some hospitals are now moving to really using 3D printing in day-to-day practice. 3D printing is used to print a model of complex anatomy to help surgeons in planning their interventions. Read more at the Health&Science webpage of theWashington Post.

iPod during knee surgery

A novel application of the iPod was recently published. The iPod is used to display pre-operatively acquired images of the patient operated upon. These images are displayed on the iPod correctly by using tracking devices to detect the position and orientation of the iPod in the operating theatre. The surgeon can review images during surgery of specific locations on the iPod. An iPad can be placed in the operating theatre to allow other people involved in the procedure see the images the surgeon has on his/her iPod.

Read this article of USA Today on the use of an iPod during knee surgery.

Virtual Surgery on iPad

Virtual surgery is a free iPad app to go through a surgical total knee replacement procedure. The app is fully narrated and interactive and also includes multiple choice questions to test the knowledge of the 'player'. This is really put on the market as being a serious game and is really well designed. Apps like these really show the ability of the iPad as an educational device.

Playing video games makes better surgeons

Look at this feature on ieee.tv discussing that video games might make surgeons better at their jobs
In this feature it is stated that video gaming could be beneficial for minimally invasive surgery. They report that surgeons that play a minimum of 3 hours of computer games per week make 37% few errors and are 27% more faster than surgeons that never play computer games when performing a simulated surgical task.