Student information
How engineers are developing new types of telemedicine and robotics to save lives.
On the 7th September 2001 Professor Jacques Marescaux performed a groundbreaking operation. He removed the gall-bladder of a patient in Strasbourg Civil Hospital in Eastern France. Not much groundbreaking about that you might think. Well, the impressive thing is that Professor Marescaux was actually in New York at the time.
The whole operation was only possible because of the development of sophisticated surgical robots and reliable high speed communication links by engineering teams around the world.
Although that operation was only a few years ago, things have already moved on and there are now even more sophisticated surgical robots available for doctors to use. However, remote surgery is still not a widespread technology and this is largely because of difficulties in standardising equipment to make different systems compatible.
To a lesser extent, there is also the problem with time delays. A surgeon cannot operate effectively with a time delay greater than 300 ms. This means that satellite communications cannot normally be used as these can involve delays of up to 1.5 seconds. Fibre optic links and even broadband are the way forward.
21st century surgery
The application of this technology isn't just restricted to earthbound hospitals though. Engineers at NASA have been developing small surgical robots that might be used in the future on space shuttle missions or on the International Space Station. Beyond Earth's orbit time delays become the main problem again.
The logical next step therefore is a robot surgeon that can operate without human intervention. How far away could that be?
Actually, the answer is no time at all. It’s here already and should be in widespread use within the next few years. The system is called Trauma Pod and has been developed by engineers for the US military. Its main purpose is to stabilise battlefield casualties and it can carry out certain functions such as controlling bleeding, administering fluids through an intravenous drip and inserting breathing tubes. More complex procedures would be carried out remotely by a surgeon operating the robots in the pod.
There are obvious applications for this device. It could be used in remote areas where surgical facilities are lacking, on expeditions in extreme conditions, or even on long distance space missions.
The future is closer than you might think.
Watch the Remote operations video to find out more about engineering solutions for long distance treatment.
Interested in working in engineering? Check out the Introduction to engineering for more information about how you could help change people’s lives.
