September 08, 2010

After robotic surgery comes robotic anesthesiology

BY Dr. Keith J. Kaplan

Courtesy of medgadget:

Robotic surgery is nothing new, but after the surgeon has been pushed away from the OR table, you are still left with the gasman. In one of the first efforts to make teleanesthesia a reality (apart from several telemonitoring efforts), researchers from the University of Florida demonstrate the possibility of a robotically assisted simulated nerve block placement under ultrasound guidance in this month's issue ofAnesthesia & Analgesia. They used the well known da Vinci surgical robot to perform the procedure. The ultrasound head still had to be manually positioned and the subject was only a phantom, but the procedure was successful. The high price and the need to still have a physician present in case of complications mean that you are not likely to see this happen in practice anytime soon, but it is an interesting technical advancement nevertheless. That leaves us speculating what will be the next procedure to be performed remotely, how about some robotic intubation?

Press release: Surgical Robot Could Be Used for Long-Distance Regional Anesthesia…

ArticleRobot-Assisted Regional Anesthesia: A Simulated Demonstration…

FlashbackMcSleepy: Automated Anesthesia System

 

 

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