First Long-Distance Heart Surgery Performed Via Robot 25
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: A doctor in India has performed a series of five percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures on patients who were 20 miles away from him. The feat was pulled off using a precision vascular robot developed by Corindus. The results of the surgeries, which were successful, have just been published in EClinicalMedicine, a spin-off of medical journal The Lancet. During the remote procedures, Dr. Tejas Patel, Chairman and Chief Interventional Cardiologist of the Apex Heart Institute in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, used Corindus' CorPath GRX robot and a hardwired internet connection, manipulating the robot with a set of joysticks and a video monitor. Corindus has performed several remote test cases in the U.S. since, but Dr. Patel's procedure marked a major milestone in medicine. "Remote procedures have the potential to transform how we deliver care when treating the most time-sensitive illnesses such as heart attack and stroke," says Mark Toland, President and Chief Executive Officer of Corindus Vascular Robotics. "The success of this study paves the way for large-scale, long-distance telerobotic platforms across the globe, and its publication in Lancet's EClinicalMedicine demonstrates the transformative nature of telerobotics. While remote robotic procedures are still in the early stages of development, it is clear we are on track to expand patients' access to care, while reducing their time to treatment."
Great (Score:3)
Now we'll have heart surgery done by cheap labor from India using robots made in China.
As opposed to no surgery (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to not getting any surgery done at all, because the place you're living in is remote and has no doctor trained for whatever procedure you need available in the neighborhood. And flying you to a big city's hospital (or flying the doctor in) would take to long or would be too dangerous given the critical state you're in.
That's what the medical telerobots are about: "Making the specialists available to a much wider area".
Not "lowering the costs of medecine by outsourcing".
Instead, "Making medecine more affordable" is the role of the healthcare system...
Oh yeah. I forgot: you're in the US. You don't have any actual Healthcare system (because "Socialism is eeeeevil!"), only for-profit health industry and for-profit pseudo-"Inssurance" companies.
So: Yes, you're totally going to have the shit outsourced out of India and China.
Enjoy your future tele-robotic proctologist from Bangalore, while your HMO's CEO is writing himself a big nice check to congratulate himself over the money saved.
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and reliable electricity
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Oh yeah. I forgot: you're in the US. You don't have any actual Healthcare system (because "Socialism is eeeeevil!"), only for-profit health industry and for-profit pseudo-"Inssurance" companies.
The insurance part is real, we have the records of the premium payments to prove it. It's the health part that's faux.
Not surgery (Score:4, Funny)
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It was going fine till he hit some lag. Ping times were in the hundreds, and it was a case of someone's getting fragged, don't let it be you.
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Distance would be the interesting part?
How far can a hardwired internet connection reach before robot feel and feedback gets to be an issue?
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"Been a hardwired internet connection that would not be a problem."
That's why they didn't use a wireless one.
"Distance would be the interesting part?
How far can a hardwired internet connection reach before robot feel and feedback gets to be an issue?"
Ask any hardcore gamer.
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"hardwried internet connection"? I HOPE not. (Score:2)
... used ... a hardwired internet connection
I hope he used a hardwired internet PROTOCOL connection, perhaps with some IP routers and redundancy, but NOT something connected to the actual, wild-and-wooly, Internet.
A hardwired INTERNET connection would leave the robot open to all sorts of network weather and bad guy activity, even if the link between his work station and the robot was all hard and under his control.
Hardwired internet connection? (Score:1)
Same connection, same feedback. As "wired" as under normal use in the same room.
Just wired over 20 miles.
Everything's big (Score:4, Funny)
> Dr. Tejas Patel
Nice suturin', Tex!
And in the meanwhile (Score:2)
And in the meanwhile most programmers (who can really work from anywhere in the world) have to drag their asses to the cubicle every day. Ridiculous.
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*tightens the leash*
Another lesson of medical telerobotics (Score:2)
Patient has another heart attack... (Score:2)
...when he sees the hospital billed him $5,000 for the usage of the DSL.
via robot? (Score:2)
How many decisions was the robot making?
If the doctor performed the surgery, and the arm just did whatever it was told and didn't have to figure out how to do it, then it was a waldo, not a robot.
Anyone know which it actually was?
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The latter. It is just a mechanical arm controlled by a computer. They are commonly used in procedures, but not remotely.
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Was a waldo of course, robots can't do surgery in 2019. marketers and news love the term "robot", sounds cooler.
Hence waldos, cameras on wheels with remote controls, master-slave arms, and other remotely controlled devices get called "robots" even though they do not fit the definition since not autonomous.
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No carrier ... (Score:2)
(&%^()_ no carrier ...
(Or maybe most of /.ers are too young to know what that means anymore ... )
Good training data! (Score:2)
I certainly hope both video and every action is recorded by these robots for review because this would be an excellent source of training data for semi-autonomous and fully-autonomous robot surgeons. Aside from that, it would be an excellent CYA measure for hospitals in the event that the patient is injured or dies.
Cause of death... (Score:2)