Surgery Through The Eyes Of Technology

My childhood always experienced a sensational curiosity within me, while visiting an ailing relative in the hospital. The curiosity transformed into an interest, as I transformed into a mature adult. Oh! I forgot to mention the moot point of my curiosity; whenever I looked at a doctor checking a patient, it filled me with a surprising chill running down my spine, “How doctor cures the patient”? Well, I did question many of my friends (medical students) to answer my queries and finally got the answer, but in a not so compelling manner; the answer started with a diagnosis procedure till operation theatre, on being asked what happens within the operation theatre, some of them were not fully sure as they never been given a chance to.

My curiosity quenched down when I joined Techugo , a mobile app development company, though it’s got nothing to do with medical terms, but a hub of latest technologies erupting from each corner of the organization with the hot and continuous discussions of tech-updates, is a daily routine within the team with our CEO- Abhinav Singh. I am glad to be a part of tech-geeks, who always yearn to make the difference to the world, through the job they perform.

Reporting back on the main topic, on one of the discussion during lunch hours, I got to know a wonderful discovery of technology Oculus Rift, and how it was used to portray the surgical procedure live and in Virtual Reality on 14 April at a London hospital. The surgery, was performed by Dr Shafi Ahmed at the Royal London Hospital, which started at 1pm BST and was available to watch for free on any compatible VR headset.

Its primary aim was to educate thousands of medical students who watched the surgery live, with a VR headset – such as the Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR. The procedure was recorded by a rig of cameras, then streamed live through the VRinOR app, to be downloaded free from the Oculus store, as well as Google Play and the iOS App Store.

This technique has won the race of technology in medical turf. Now millions of people out there can revolutionize surgical education and training, particularly in developing countries, which lack resources.

No wonders, viewers, including a major number of medical students, clicked through the reel to reveal the nitty-gritty of an operation by using a simple button. I sincerely hope and wish, the way technology has rolled out in the medical field, in the next few decades or maybe in few years only, it would spawn many new versions, which will kick-start the notion of a head-mounted show of medical technologies.

Arpit Tripathi