Robot anesthesiologist iControl-RP has been tested with 250 patients in operations. It

• controls the dose of anesthetic to put patient under
• monitor ECG brain activity to adjust dose during operation so you neither wake up or die in middle from the drugs

From Washington Post article:

Anesthesia is tricky. It’s often compared to flying a plane – keeping a patient hovering in just the right plane of consciousness. It’s called depth of hypnosis. Surgeons don’t want patients writhing on the table. And patients don’t want to be aware of the operation. Of course, no one wants patients to die, a distinct possibility if too much of an anesthesia drug is delivered.

The iControl-RP aims to thread that needle by using an EEG to scan a patient’s brain waves to make sure the sedation is adequate. And it looks at heart and breathing rates and blood oxygen levels to make sure the patient is not slipping too deeply into sleep. The machine’s algorithm makes all the medical decisions that a doctor usually does.

Ansermino said anesthesiologists are not very good at maintaining just the right amount of sedation. This is especially important in children, where studies show that deep sedation can have negative longterm cognitive impacts on infants and toddlers.

One early role for the machine, they say, could be in war zones or remote areas where an anesthesiologist is unavailable.

Hhmmm median expected annual pay for a typical Physician - Anesthesiology in the United States is $347,991 (source). These are not entry level jobs being replaced by automation. This is part of many jobs being affected by robots and early form AI...

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Memories with Maya is both good scifi and a relationship story with a twist. I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened next to the three main characters. I found Dan a bit irritating at first, where he doesn't express his feeling for his girlfriend Maya, but he comes through in the last third of the book.

I also learned many interesting ideas and applications of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (think more advanced than Google glasses) that I hadn't come across before. The book is an eye opener into what will soon be possible with this kind of technology and the social implications. From enhanced nightclub interactions and virtual clothing, to lie detecting glasses and remote reality sex encounters. Then there are the military applications that get Dan and Maya into serious danger...

Also worth taking a look at is some of the science behind the story. The author posts this at at http://www.dirrogate.com (but if you don't like spoilers, visit the site after reading the book!) and he has also written on the transhumanist aspects of VR.
 

This entry was posted on June 16, 2013 at 12:10 PM and has received 1792 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.