[Paul Anderson]

Paul Anderson  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Hi Chris and team,

I have just heard on the local radio and on the TV last night about medical mistakes.

Why is it not standard practice to use shadow boards in operating theatres? You could have one for clean instruments and one for used instruments and before the patient is sewn up, an assisting nurse checks the gear is either on the clean shadow board or the dirty shadow board.

In the case of swabs, if you start off with 40, check for the number left and the number in the bin.

I think doctors in the UK also make a few mistakes.

Regards

Paul  
NZ

What do you think?

[JnA]

I suspect that time, money and human resources are limited.

[graham.d]

I have just had some experience of hospital procedures because my son had to have a routine operation that turned out to have complications and then resulted in a further emergency operation. This is a one-off observation, but I thought that A&E seemed better, with more sensible decision making, than the surgical wards. I think this was because they had to do things faster and there was more individual responsibility. The surgical ward seemed bound by numerous procedures that did not get passed on properly from one shift to the next. And nobody seemed to have responsibility for any particular patient. Most of the staff tried and meant well, but they seemed defeated by the system. There were many cases of left hands not knowing what the right hands were doing.

[latebind]

Hi Paul

In my understanding, robots will replace surgeons in the next few decades.

Currently, there are robotic devices involved of surgery, but they are remotely controlled by a surgeon. This gives great precision in a wide range of operations but still does not eliminate the human element.

It might take a very long time, but I reckon eventually robots will be doing autonomous surgery, and we will finally have the human factor eliminated, making surgery safer.

[JnA]

Hi Paul

In my understanding, robots will replace surgeons in the next few decades.

Currently, there are robotic devices involved of surgery, but they are remotely controlled by a surgeon. This gives great precision in a wide range of operations but still does not eliminate the human element.

It might take a very long time, but I reckon eventually robots will be doing autonomous surgery, and we will finally have the human factor eliminated, making surgery safer.

I suspect that robots won't completely replace the human element in surgery. Unless they are designed to think independently, learn, act and respond to emergency situations or are programmed to respond to the multitudes of scenarios that exists simply by performing surgery.

[latebind]

I suspect that robots won't completely replace the human element in surgery. Unless they are designed to think independently, learn, act and respond to emergency situations or are programmed to respond to the multitudes of scenarios that exists simply by performing surgery.

As a software designer, I know too much about the flaws in software today. Robotic surgeons might become plausible one day, but it would have to take a shift from current programming paradigms to a new model. I can certainly say that our current programming model today (even AI) is not good enough to support a robotic surgeon.

But I truly believe it will be a reality in the next few thousand years, we just need some brilliant thinkers and visonaries....