Welcome to the Virtual Surgery Section

The landscape of surgery and medicine is changing beyond recognition. Advances in computer technology along with developments in visualisation techniques and robotics has meant surgery is changing more in the last decade than it has arguably in the last hundred years. For some time it has been known that complex training systems can be a boon to providing realistic scenarios for future professionals.

The system that most are aware of are flight simulators capable not only of training pilots in the complexity of modern flying, but systems that are capable of simulating a range of possible scenarios in complete safety. Increasingly the same is becoming possible in modern surgery and these videos above and below offer a glimpse of that future.

Laparoscopy

Welcome to the Laparoscopy Section

Laparoscopic surgery, also known as 'keyhole surgery' is now well established. But if there is an area of modern surgery that embraces the use of modern technology from robotics through to virtual reality, it is laparoscopic surgery. Such is the increasing complexity of the surgical tools and techniques employed by laparoscopic surgery, coupled with the requirement of even greater precision and ambition on the part of the surgeons that computer assisted visualisation techniques are increasingly employed, alongside of the support offered by what is known as robotic assisted surgery.

It is doubtful if surgery will develop a surgeon computer relationship such as the fly by wire systems used by pilots. But if it does become possible look to laparoscopic surgery to see it there first.

Virtual Communication

Welcome to the Virtual Communication Section

The social dimension of the internet has been one of the most remarkable growth areas in the 21st century. Few appreciate that the most basic tool of social communication the email was aimed at scientists, indeed the 'invention' of the web as we know it emerged from the laboratories at CERN. Virtual communication, a central tool of science, migrated into the public domain and now it feeds back into science and medicine. As increasingly public and professionals are coming to expect the same level of communication, dissemination of real time information and interaction in medicine and surgery that they increasingly enjoy in their lives.

How the surgery tweets were done.

Here are just a sample of the hundreds of Twitter opportunities open for you to become involved.

Surgery Tweets