3 ms·

10 years ago or more, I read an article saying that telepresence surgery was the wave of the future and doctors who grew up playing video games were much better

10 years ago or more, I read an article saying that telepresence surgery was the wave of the future and doctors who grew up playing video games were much better at it. But you'd expect that to be increasing on average, given how video games keep getting more popular. It seems like, perhaps, operating buttons and joysticks doesn't train the same sort of dexterity as sewing does.

qohen 8y ago
I was just looking it up -- here's the original paper, from 2007: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17309970 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17309970 And, if you don't want to read the paper, here's a piece about it and some related studies (2013): https://www.medicalbag.com/lifestyle/gamers-make-good-surgeons/article/472347/ https://www.medicalbag.com/lifestyle/gamers-make-good-surgeo...
larrywright 8y ago
Only tangentially related, but still relevant: I had a very positive experience with a telepresence neurologist this year - not in surgery, but in consultation. My mom had what we thought might be a stroke, but without the typical symptoms of a stroke. We wound up in the ER on a Saturday in a medium-sized metropolitan area (maybe 250k people). They wheeled her back for a head CT, and at the same time wheeled in a telepresence cart, with a computer screen and a video camera. Within a minute or so, a remote neurologist was on the screen talking to me. Before my mom was even wheeled back to the exam room, he had viewed the images and identified the bleed in her brain that was causing her vision problems. I was fascinated by all of this, so I asked the ER doctor and nurse about it, and they told me that with specialties like neurology, on a weekend they’d have to page someone to come in. It would likely be 30 minutes before they even walked in the door of the hospital. With the telepresence neurologist, the SLA was something like 5 minutes. That’s a huge difference when dealing with serious medical problems, and it’s not hyperbole to say that it will save lives. Another thing I learned that day: Not all strokes look like strokes, and any sudden-onset vision problem is a stroke until it’s been ruled out.
shostack 8y ago
I wonder how much of the telepresence thing has to deal with adjusting for lag. Accounting for lag and high pings was definitely something a lot of early gamers grew up with (and is still an issue).

qohen 8y ago

I was just looking it up -- here's the original paper, from 2007: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17309970 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17309970 And, if you don't want to read the paper, here's a piece about it and some related studies (2013): https://www.medicalbag.com/lifestyle/gamers-make-good-surgeons/article/472347/ https://www.medicalbag.com/lifestyle/gamers-make-good-surgeo...

larrywright 8y ago

Only tangentially related, but still relevant: I had a very positive experience with a telepresence neurologist this year - not in surgery, but in consultation. My mom had what we thought might be a stroke, but without the typical symptoms of a stroke. We wound up in the ER on a Saturday in a medium-sized metropolitan area (maybe 250k people). They wheeled her back for a head CT, and at the same time wheeled in a telepresence cart, with a computer screen and a video camera. Within a minute or so, a remote neurologist was on the screen talking to me. Before my mom was even wheeled back to the exam room, he had viewed the images and identified the bleed in her brain that was causing her vision problems. I was fascinated by all of this, so I asked the ER doctor and nurse about it, and they told me that with specialties like neurology, on a weekend they’d have to page someone to come in. It would likely be 30 minutes before they even walked in the door of the hospital. With the telepresence neurologist, the SLA was something like 5 minutes. That’s a huge difference when dealing with serious medical problems, and it’s not hyperbole to say that it will save lives. Another thing I learned that day: Not all strokes look like strokes, and any sudden-onset vision problem is a stroke until it’s been ruled out.

shostack 8y ago

I wonder how much of the telepresence thing has to deal with adjusting for lag. Accounting for lag and high pings was definitely something a lot of early gamers grew up with (and is still an issue).