Vietnam Medic Makes Homemade Endoscope

Davian writes "As reported by the BBC a Vietnamese doctor has managed to create an endoscope using an apparatus consisting of lenses and a webcam, linked to a Pentium 4. Total cost of extra hardware - less than $1000." The doctor plans to also assist other local hospitals that are facing similar budgetary contraints.

I can see one way of making it cheaper

[vidnet]

"Using the Windows operating system, we have programs to record the images and put them in a database of patients."

That's half the expense right there.

Cool stuff.

[Randseed]

Until Windows eats his data. (Sorry. Obligatory bullshit Windows flame.)

No seriously, this is some cool stuff and it's a creative way to deal with the problem. I'm curious how big the webcam in question is, since the article didn't really say unless I missed it on two read-throughs. (Early in the morning, you see.) Considering that I'm about to go out and do the same thing using $100,000+ in hardware today on a couple of patients, it's really interesting because this thing probably provides pictures that are almost as good, if not just as good.

$30,000 versus $1,000

[torpor]

truth be told, that $30k price-tag is mostly profit for the med-co's currently stiffing american hospitals out of cheap, quality, medical equipment.

in vietnam they have no such compunction. they don't mind building things which work, for cheap, and not screwing their customers for every last penny they can ..

i say, great. american medical 'prowess' is propped up by insanely disproportionate profits. i daresay a few public hospitals in detroit could stand to DIY the ol' endoscope too, and save a few bucks for those AIDS drugs they've gotta stock up on in order to be 'qualified' for "Federal Support".

sheesh. no big surprise that things are cheaper outside of the worlds largest continent full of greedy, selfish pigs ..

Re:Ehh?

[4nd3r5]

RTFA.. in the beginning he had problems installing programs on the PC, and he had to ask a guy for help... don't you think that it would hinder progress of his project if he had to use linux, and find another guy to help him... im not to sure there are to many tech savy people hanging around a region in vietnam, where they can't afford a 30 k endoscope.

off topic.. sort of...

i know a guy who has an endoscope in his attick, thats not beeing used.. isn't this world nice and unfair..

Its the thoughts thats important not the parts

[Qem]

A couple of people have pointed out that not using windows would probably make it cheaper. Don't forget the guy isn't a computer expert. Its probably all that he already knows how to use. I think that the steps used here could be important for helping to lower the medical expenses in other countries. Its probably possible to make the equipment cheaper etc, but don't forget that its no use using a different system - if you don't know how to use it, or don't know the difference between different companies. Personally I'm wondering how effective the equipment is, its probably better than nothing, but how much can it detect, how invasive is it in comparison and when would it likely to be used.

Re:the most important part

[domipheus]

Agree with you fully - but it is mostly the bbc's fault, they are always overblowing their stories.

I wonder how surgically sterile...

[cnelzie]

...his equipment is.

    It doesn't sound like he purchased finely machined parts constructed out of surgical steel and other surgery rated equipment.

  With that in mind. I am unsure if I would want to be the first person this is used on and I definately wouldn't want to be the third, fourth fifth or last person this machine is used on...

Re:This is what patent law is for

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that helping the poor (mentioned about a thousand times in the bible) isn't quite as polarizing as, say, fighting homosexuality (mentioned once or twice in the bible).

Helping to empower the have-nots takes power away from the haves, while hot-blooded emotionalism and fearmongering does the oppoite. Which do you think business/spiritual/political leaders want?

Okay guys, open source it, Linux it, DO it.

[crovira]

How cheaply can it be done for?

It should be able to take images from a wide range of input (devices, resolutions, color corrections, user selectable, and NOT from a config list requiring rebooting, if you please,) feeding something like The Gimp for image manipulation, in real time.

Guy's in Vietnam and had no support issues with M$ We can do better for cheaper.

Re:This is what patent law is for

[Registered Coward v2]

That's the part I've never understanded about the US. On one hand the US is ultra-religious. But on the other hand helping the poor is totaly unamerican (socialism is baaaaaaaad). Now what I don't get is this: is the US hypocritical (a lot of talking, but noone really meaning what they say) or is this a case of a splitten personality? (radical differences in oppinion)
This isn't meant as flamebait or anti-americanism or something. It's just strange that a society that holds on to religion in so many ways, seems to disagree with a major portion of it.

Part of that is probably the roots of America's predominant religion - US Christianity stems from Puritan and other sects where being poor wasn't a sin but sloth was - hard work was a virtue (which fit in nicely with what was needed to survive in a foreign land)and neighbors helped each other through hard times when luck, not sloth, caused someone to fall onto hard times. Coupled with America's belief that you can triumph through hard work provides an American view of charity - help people get on their feet but don't let them stay on the dole forever - hence work fare vs welfare.

Americans and America are generally generous people - in the context of how they view charity, which is to say not better or worse, but different.

As a side note - America's disdain for socialism is rooted in the innate distrust of government and a belief in the "American Dream." American's don't like taxes (ask the English about that)so establishing a broad social net funded by high tax rates is very unlikely.

Re:This is what patent law is for

[matt4077]

I'm not american but german, but I've spent a lot of time in the US and believe you (and many other europeans) are misunderstanding some of the facts:

Americans are not opposed to helping the poor on a personal level. In fact, americans spent a lot more (absolute and as % of GDP) on charity than europeans. In my experience, americans also have a culture of doing volunteer work to an extend that doesn't exist in europe. For example, I've seen a complete new school building be built by the student's parents. Some gave money, some gave machines, some did the work.

What is different is the role of government in charity: while europeans see helping the poor mainly as a job of the state, americans do it themselves. If you look at the financial structure of shelters, soup kitchens but also museums and operas, you'll find that they are mostly financed by governments in europe, while they rely heavily on individual's contributions in the US.

So it's nearsighted to say that Americans don't want to help the poor. They simply don't want the government involved, want to do it on their own terms and want it to be seen as what it is, namely charity, and not as some god-given right of other people over one's own money.

Now, this doesn't mean there aren't some seriously crack-smocking right-wing jesus-nuts whose actions and words don't match. But that's another story.

Freud and fixations (was: Re:Cool stuff.)

[B747SP]

I'm curious how big the webcam in question is, since the article didn't really say unless I missed it on two read-throughs.

Boy, wouldn't Freud have a field day with you lot! I'm of the perception that the webcam stays 'high and dry' on top of the PC (or somewhere else close by) and doesn't go anywhere near your moth^H^H^H^Hbutt. Else why would he be tinkering with optics and buying an $800 probe?

I'm thinking the endo probe does the dirty work so to speak, and the system of optics that he's come up with makes the other end of the probe play nicely with a common-or-garden webcam.

Not withstanding that 'endoscopes' can be used on both 'ends', I wanna know why in the picture accompanying TFA, he appears to be shoving the endoscope down the back of the vict^H^H^H^Hpatient's kneck?!

Re:usual modding practices

[dunc78]

Because once again, it makes it look like the initial cost of the software is the only thing that determines the total cost of ownership. I am a fairly computer literate person, and every time I mess around with Linux there is some stumbling block that prevents me from doing what I am trying to do and I then have to spend hours googling or in chat rooms trying to figure out what the hell I need to do. Like it or not, accept it or not, I usually don't have to do this when running Windows, generally things just work. Now, I am not trying to bash Linux either, I run dual boot because I am interesting in learning and the reality is that there is a steep learning curve involved with Linux. And especially in the professional world, time is money.

Re:This is what patent law is for

[kermitthefrog917]

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day... teach a man to fish... he eats for a lifetime. Likewise... raise taxes and give massive unemployment benefits... sure... it helps the poor... but wheres the progress?

America is a land of work. we get made fun of because we work too much. Likewise, we make fun of europe because they are lazy and dont work enough.

a good friend of mine here in Belgium (yeah.. im expat) has had it with socialism.... one of his employees is currenty "sick"... under Belgian law, a worker is entitled to 14 days paid sick leave. This worker is out 14 days... comes back for the 15th day, and then takes another 14 days leave...

can anyone tell me how a situation like that under socialism benefits society?

My personal belief is that rather than just providing for the poor, we should fight for their righhts and abiity to work and provide for themselves.

and as far as religious groups helping the poor, I know my church donates a considerable ammount to foriegn aid. (The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter Day Saints) one such "Teach a Man to Fish" is the Perpetual Education Fund: a fund established through donations which allows adults in third world countries to take out low interest loans in order to pursue an education.

Overall, for me I feel that through my church I can contirbute more to help the world than a socialist government would.

Re:This is what patent law is for

[Brian Blessed]

[Americans] simply don't want the government involved, want to do it on their own terms and want it to be seen as what it is, namely charity ...

I disagree with this. In the case of unemployment benefits, there is no charity involved because they are part of an overall system that enables businesses to be more flexible in their hiring and firing.
Rightly, there are government regulations on how businesses may treat their employees, and in my view it is equally correct that as part of that deal people are entitled to unemployment benefits.
This system is clearly beneficial to society when compared with either having more fixed employment regulations or a proliferation of social issues caused by unemployment-related poverty.

- Brian.

Socialism != Charity

[goldspider]

If you equate Charity with Socialism, then I can understand how you are confused. Perhaps explaining the difference will clear things up for you.

Charity - voluntary giving
Socialism - compelled confiscation

Re:a little more then that

[Xoro]

A nice, insightful parent post and you spin it back into a tedious little morality play. I knew it was too good to last.

Regarding porn, I remind you that there is more than one American and if one person loves Jesus while another stars in jizz flicks, this does not meet any definition of hypocrisy.

Saving Private Ryan was on TV, so it's difficult to sustain your argument that you can't show it on TV. Further, despite concerns from some stations, the FCC issued a preemptive ruling stating that there would be no fines for showing the movie uncut.

As for Janet Jackson, even the Ameriphobic Guardian [guardian.co.uk] cited a poll in which on 17% of Americans were "very concerned" about the Jackson incident -- the same percentage of people who voted for Le Pen in France. Neither is a sign of the impending apocalypse.

Re:Not very surprising

[joab_son_of_zeruiah]

Additional thought: medical devices do not need to be FDA approved if they are used under a physician's direct supervision. (I know a physician who has a semi-diagnostic piece of software that is sold and used under exactly this kind of exception. It's take years but his sales are quite good. Of course the software program is not nearly as invasive as this device.) Since endospcopy is practiced by MD's, this guy's device is perfectly legal and by all measures a total end-run around the major vendors. Of course it's a risk to the doc -- the first bad accident and there goes his license under perhaps a substandard care kind of malpractice prosecution. It's been my opinion that FDA device approval was as much about protecting physicians as it was the patient.

Cost of Failure?

[totoanihilation]

I've noticed a certain mentality in the US: It is everyone's right (or is that duty?) to sue the heck out of everyone else.
Perhaps these medical companies selling their expensive equipment are only compensating for the cost of equipment failure? An endoscope that loses an o-ring in a patient might cost the company half a million in "Digestive discomfort compensation"...
Just a thought...

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:This is what patent law is for

[Epistax]

As a side note - America's disdain for socialism is rooted in the innate distrust of government and a belief in the "American Dream." Americans don't like taxes (ask the English about that)so establishing a broad social net funded by high tax rates is very unlikely.

I'm going to call a bit of good ol' ignorance on this point (not on the poster but on the Americans he refers to). Socialism is classless. Anyone with a government connection would be a higher class than someone without, so either there is no government, or it's ubiquitous (which is the same thing, btw). The issue really is the path that Communist State countries have taken on their way to Communism (attempted anyway: there has never been a communist country). Corrupt politicians were abundant (and still are in the same area despite Democracy) and a lack of an infrastructure couldn't support the movement. The collapse was thus blamed on the system rather than the underlying infrastructure and corruption problems, and this is still hurting us today. Now anything that even appears socialist is frowned upon due to the mis-association.

(/wonders what America will do when it figures out its most socialist institution is insurance)

Re:This is what patent law is for

[celticchrys]

It is not about feeling personally superior for helping someone. It is primarily about other people not having the right to feel like they are _entitled_ to whatever money you have worked hard to accumulate. It's about having the _choice_ to spend your money/effort/time helping where _you_ see fit. Not where your governemnt sees fit. In your own community, your own people.
       

Calling all geeks

[mattr]

Okay here's your project! Go!

Seriously if you are looking for a good project to work on it can't get much better than this, or something similar. If you can get a few people together - an expert each in hardware, analog/digital, software, and domain-specific industrial knowledge there are bound to be lots of ways you can change the world. The biggest problem with people who want to do good for the third world (as far as I have experienced and been told) is that you imagine everything can be fixed with the net, have no grip on higher priorities, etc. But this is a real case of something that is needed, and some experts could even make it a better project, saving the M$ tax being the least of it. How about figuring out a way to get a freescope to every hospital in Vietname or whatever country you pick (how about Cambodia?) Maybe someone reading this in Vietname would talk to the doctor about setting up a free endoscope construction online resource, starting with buying a scope and using windows with a faq but ultimately going full blown from scratch and with ways to hook in small/medium size manufacturers.
This person in Vietname wouldn't have to do the entire project himself (but must be responsible to getting things done, or else they won't), but can ask for help from people on slashdot and they'll tell their friends, and so on.

I've helped a friend who created the Sihanouk hospital in Cambodia and that individual is a very resourceful retired journalist able to pull in all kinds of favors. Definitely not common. But one interesting project was telemedicine, getting links in to check with foreign hospitals for diagnosis. I also met someone who was using a pda and cheap sensors for very inexpensive testing and telemetry (Grenoble Hospital I believe, in France). The best is if you get a doctor who is also a whiz at every other necessary skill and doesn't have a lot of patients to worry about.. but as you can see it took this man 2 years and it's in his spare time. That is fine. Now can anybody else help him or people like him, who understand exactly what the need is and just need help to get it IMPLEMENTED?
Run don't walk and find those key people. You can change the world.

Re:Pah...

[The Madpostal Worker]

Merek's problem is that when faced with evidence that their drugs might not be safe they spent over a $100 million a year on direct to consumer marketing. [arstechnica.com] They delibrately concealed evidence that their drugs might be quite harmful and $250 million might not be enough of a penalty.

Re:$30,000 versus $1,000

[Anonymous Coward]

um no he isn't. Have you seen how the American system treats corprate whistle blowers.

They are fired, usually can't get another job no matter how eduacted they are, they hardly ever see any fruits from there efforts (nothing usually happens to the company at falt). So why would this person do anything other than post his frustration on slashdot?

If you don't beleve me google "whistle bloweres ____" insert Enron, Big Oil, Medicare, make up your own.