Over are the days of Apple CEO Steve Jobs being assisted by mysterious men in black suits and the occasional helping hand from Jonathan Ive. El Jobso is now taking his own car to work, which leads me to believe that is recovery from liver transplant surgery is moving along just fine.
At least now he has an excuse to park in the handicapped spots. Live long and prosper, Steve Jobs.
Meet Becky Stern. She’s pretty handy with some felt and a hot glue gun. She also had to have surgery performed on her leg to remove cartilage. Her doctor drilled holes into her bone, which is painful to type let alone experience first-hand. What’s a girl to do while recovering from the painful ordeal? Make a plush model of your very own bones, that’s what. Becky recreated a scale model of her femur, complete with drill holes. Creepily creative!
Claudia Castillo suffered from a tuberculosis infection which affected her bronchial tube making it collapse at the point where it entered her lungs. Facing a complete lung removal, Claudia instead went through a pioneering operation to have a new windpipe grown for her using her own bone marrow stem cells. Claudia, a native to Barcelona, has become the first person to be given a whole organ tailor-made just for her.
I manage to hurt myself multiple times throughout each given month, usually in places which are easy to fracture, such as the ankles or the wrists. Whether it’s due to clumsiness or completely accidental, the fact remains: I’m in pain. The good news is orthopedic firms are planning on using RFID implants to monitor a transplant’s performance while in use.
Orthopedic devices like a knee replacement must be calibrated to ensure correct functionality. Surgeons need informational feedback when a patient returns for a follow-up after a procedure. Sensors embedded in an implant could transmit that information to a computer allowing the surgeon to determine if the implant is performing to its full expectation. Think of it as Scholastic’s Magical School Bus meets real life; identifying problems on the inside of the body while remaining outside of it.
A Japanese surgeon demonstrates the precision of a DaVinci surgical robot with its ability to practice the art of origami. Dr. Norihiko Ishikawa of the Department of Telesurgery has the robot folding a crane no bigger than a penny using nothing but it’s robotic pincer-like hands.
I’d gladly let this robot slice me open to deprive me of a kidney if it’s precise enough to fold paper into a miniature crane. Who knows? Maybe it is capable of doing other Japanese recreational activities such as Bonsai. It may save lives and due neat arts and crafts but is it Johnny-Five?
Ever since some jackass got an RFID implant in his hand, every geek on the planet has been itching to get one. After all, if you could open your front door or turn on a CD player with the wave of your hand, wouldn’t you get the procedure done? Of course you would. Unless of course, the Mafia is going to chop your hand off for gambling debts you owe.
A Pittsburg-based company called ClearCount Medical Solutions is now using RFID chips inside surgical sponges to prevent loss inside human cavities during surgery. Did you know that one in every 1000 surgeries ends with a misplaced sponge? Not cool. ClearCount’s new system should keep a hold on things inside the OR when your surgeon is losing his or her cool.
Larry Ludlow might not be completely bald, but if he ever wanted to sport Moe’s haircut, this robot is his ticket. Restoration Robotics of Mountain View, a California-based company, has created a robot that has the ability to perform hair transplant surgery quicker and less painfully than doctors.
Once it’s plucked enough hair from your head using a hollow needle that just plain sucks, the robot begins to “plant” the follicles in the patient’s head. And to add the cherry on top: the robot has the ability to design the perfect hairline for a patient in which doctors scratch their heads and say, “What the hell would this ‘baldie’ look like with hair?”
No one likes having to go into a hospital for major surgery. I doubt that was the main reason for coming up with this new, non-invasive procedure that allows doctors to remove your appendix sans pain. It may be a little uncomfortable, but it sure beats having your guts cut apart.
The procedure works as follows: A miniature camera and tube are sent down the patient’s stomach. Doctors then look around and make a TINY incision in the stomach and cut away the appendix. Afterwards, a small net-like bag is used to scoop up the appendix and everything is then pulled out the mouth, organs included. Why have the surgery? According to one patient, he was “doing sit-ups and eating pizza” a day later. Impressive!
