{"id":3088,"date":"2005-08-08T04:34:44","date_gmt":"2005-08-08T11:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/?p=3088"},"modified":"2009-04-03T04:37:53","modified_gmt":"2009-04-03T11:37:53","slug":"robot-makes-medical-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/robot-makes-medical-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Robot makes medical history"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"bullets\">\n<li><strong>8\/8\/2005<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>New York, NY<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>staff<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Financial Express (www.financialexpress.com)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Gliding into the operating room for the first time to assist a surgeon, Penelope wasn\u2019t nervous. Unlike other novice medical assistants scrubbing in, \u201cshe\u201d felt nothing at all. That\u2019s because Penelope is a robot, a machine that recently made medical history by becoming the first to act as an independent surgical aide during an operation.<\/p>\n<p>During a June procedure at New York-Presbyterian Hospital to remove a benign tumor from a patient\u2019s forearm, Penelope responded to voice commands from a surgeon, handing over clamps, forceps and other instruments with her magnetized mechanical arm. Watching with digital cameras, the robot retrieved the instruments when the surgeon placed them down.<\/p>\n<p>Inside her computer brain, artificial intelligence software kept track of the implements to ensure none were misplaced and made predictions about what tool the surgeon would ask for next.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPenelope is just the first step,\u201d said Dr. Michael Treat, a surgeon, physicist and lifelong robotics fan who founded the company that developed Penelope. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the operating room and you\u2019re trying to fight your way through a difficult trauma case, there could be a machine that\u2019s helping you mind the instruments and not lose things and keep track of stuff, kind of watching your tail for you,\u201d Treat said. \u201cThat\u2019s a glorious vision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is a vision closing in on reality. Robots are playing an increasing role in surgery and health care across the country. Mobile robots in many hospitals aid patients by filling prescriptions, delivering meals or ferrying blood samples to a lab.<\/p>\n<p>More than a dozen institutions use a robot that allows doctors to make virtual rounds, checking in on patients from their offices and homes through telemedicine, technology that delivers health care at a distance. That robot, made by InTouch Health Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif., is topped by a video screen that shows a live image of a doctor\u2019s face. The physician, who controls the robot with a joystick and a special console, can see and hear the patient through a video camera and microphone.<\/p>\n<p>In March, the UCLA Medical Center began testing the robot in its neurosurgery intensive care unit and the Detroit Medical Center deployed 10 of them in six hospitals.<\/p>\n<p>Surgical robots typically fall into two categories.<\/p>\n<p>Machines actively controlled by a surgeon function as tools to enhance human vision or movements for delicate procedures. Such robots have been used on patients with conditions including knee injuries, heart problems and throat cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are robots like Penelope that work on their own, performing some duties of medical professionals.<\/p>\n<p>Will Penelope put nurses out of a job?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s not going to replace. She\u2019s going to enhance the job,\u201d said Doreen Taliaferro, an operating room nurse for 20 years who served as Penelope\u2019s backup during the robot\u2019s first surgery.<\/p>\n<p>While Penelope performed smoothly, Taliaferro was there to take over if anything went wrong and to handle medications and sponges, which are beyond the robot\u2019s current abilities. \u201cThis is going to give me more time with my patient and my surgical team,\u201d Taliaferro said.<\/p>\n<p>That is the goal of Penelope, to take over repetitive tasks and free up people for work that requires a human touch, such as interacting with patients and families, Treat said.<\/p>\n<p>The robot also is a reliable counter of surgical equipment and eventually could help prevent items like sponges from accidentally being left inside patients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like \u2019Star Wars,\u201d Treat said. \u201cR2D2 is not replacing Luke Skywalker. R2D2 is kind of a sidekick.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>8\/8\/2005 New York, NY staff Financial Express (www.financialexpress.com) Gliding into the operating room for the first time to assist a surgeon, Penelope wasn\u2019t nervous. Unlike other novice medical assistants scrubbing in, \u201cshe\u201d felt nothing at all. That\u2019s because Penelope is a robot, a machine that recently made medical history by becoming the first to act as an independent surgical aide during an operation. During a June procedure at New York-Presbyterian Hospital to remove a benign tumor from a patient\u2019s forearm, Penelope responded to voice commands from a surgeon, handing over clamps, forceps and other instruments with her magnetized mechanical arm. Watching with digital cameras, the robot retrieved the instruments when the surgeon placed them down. Inside her computer brain, artificial intelligence software kept track of the implements to ensure none were misplaced and made predictions about what tool the surgeon would ask for next. \u201cPenelope is just the first step,\u201d said Dr. Michael Treat, a surgeon, physicist and lifelong robotics fan who founded the company that developed Penelope. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the operating room and you\u2019re trying to fight your way through a difficult trauma case, there could be a machine that\u2019s helping you mind the instruments and not lose things and keep track of stuff, kind of watching your tail for you,\u201d Treat said. \u201cThat\u2019s a glorious vision.\u201d It is a vision closing in on reality. Robots are playing an increasing role in surgery and health care across the country. Mobile robots in many hospitals aid patients by filling  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oral-cancer-news-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3089,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088\/revisions\/3089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}