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Surgeons at UCSD Find Apple Vision Pro Promising for Minimally Invasive Surgery
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Do some research. I know what I’m talking about because I did my research a while back.
Thank you. I’ll research these later today.
I have used OSIRIX in the past on Mac.
Anything like it that’s native to the Vision Pro?
The notion of a power failure or "the battery going dead" is a non-issue. Granted, my experience as far as hospitals and operating rooms goes is limited to the patient experience. However, that's a LOT of patient experience so take it for what it's worth.
Operating rooms use a lot of electronic equipment that have built in redundancies. Generator backups, battery backups, and so on. Modern OR's are already so tech dependent that adding another layer of technology is NOT likely to introduce the opportunity for a failure. The need to support a bunch of computers the doctors are using is already "baked in" to the pie. If a doctor is using AVP to assist them with the surgery, they would just be using flat panel monitors to get the same information to complete the surgery if they weren't using the headset. If the OR suffered a catastrophic loss of power which included a failure of the redundancies built into the hospital infrastructure, the headset would likely be one of the things that continued to work because it has a battery.
A power failure that would disable a headset would bring an entire OR to a stop anyway, so it's a moot point.
This technology does give a surgeon the ability to remain more physically focused in the direction of the surgery. It also gives them the ability to have access to a greater amount of information than they would have otherwise. Both most likely reduce fatigue, which would translate to better surgical outcomes.
All of the surgeries I've had have involved high tech imaging devices used in "real time" to guide the minimally invasive instruments to complete. One being a heart valve surgery, and another a chemoablation. A power outage in either case would have been a full stop event for the surgery.
The operating rooms in all the procedures I've had have been very impressive hives of technology and organization that would fail to work instantly without power. The amount of technology in use is very impressive, at least to me.
If my surgeon was comfortable with using a VR headset and thought it improved the outcome of my surgery, well I would defer to their judgement.
Operating rooms use a lot of electronic equipment that have built in redundancies. Generator backups, battery backups, and so on. Modern OR's are already so tech dependent that adding another layer of technology is NOT likely to introduce the opportunity for a failure. The need to support a bunch of computers the doctors are using is already "baked in" to the pie. If a doctor is using AVP to assist them with the surgery, they would just be using flat panel monitors to get the same information to complete the surgery if they weren't using the headset. If the OR suffered a catastrophic loss of power which included a failure of the redundancies built into the hospital infrastructure, the headset would likely be one of the things that continued to work because it has a battery.
A power failure that would disable a headset would bring an entire OR to a stop anyway, so it's a moot point.
This technology does give a surgeon the ability to remain more physically focused in the direction of the surgery. It also gives them the ability to have access to a greater amount of information than they would have otherwise. Both most likely reduce fatigue, which would translate to better surgical outcomes.
All of the surgeries I've had have involved high tech imaging devices used in "real time" to guide the minimally invasive instruments to complete. One being a heart valve surgery, and another a chemoablation. A power outage in either case would have been a full stop event for the surgery.
The operating rooms in all the procedures I've had have been very impressive hives of technology and organization that would fail to work instantly without power. The amount of technology in use is very impressive, at least to me.
If my surgeon was comfortable with using a VR headset and thought it improved the outcome of my surgery, well I would defer to their judgement.
Well, I've been using Apple devices for more than a decade now (including my latest addition, Vision Pro) and never had to install an update all of the sudden while in the middle of something I've been doing.
Yeah, why are people expecting that surgeons are just throwing these on without planning, risk assesment and strategies in case of failure?
I think it is pretty much accepted by most that passthrough is fuzzy. Let me guess, you also do not see the "halo" effect when watching a film in the apple cinema environment (or any dark theater like environment)? That was the biggest issue for me.
It’s a little fuzzy, depending on the lighting.
The halo I have seen and it’s bothersome, but eventually I get use to it and it becomes less noticeable.
I do understand your complaint, but for the medical application, the Surgeon doesn’t use the passthrough.
He is focused on looking at what the camera(s) are feeding to him and the vitals and other information needed for the surgery.
The passthrough view is not that important. It doesn’t need to be crystal clear.
That's why the patient is sedated. Once you're under, there's no turning back if the spinning beach ball shows up in the Vision Pro's display 😉
If the surgeon if using only when in proximity to the patient and taking it off otherwise, sure. And they very well could be.
If not, it's then a non-stationary tethered device. There is a risk is getting entangled when moving around, esp. when there are multiple surgeons in the vicinity wearing them and all sorts of things to snag, and now you've added unnecessary hazards to the environment.
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Sadly, it’s just another day of Apple hate with people grasping at straws trying to make a case that Apple is bad/dumb/clueless/evil/stupid and on and on. That extends to Apple customers as well. Apparently that feels empowering spewing that day after day.
My research says the opposite. The passthrough is already not great especially since it has narrow FOV and doesn't really represent your eye sight. Besides, what will you do if the power is out during the surgery? It's too risky to use.
Passthrough is not critical in this scenario. The surgeon is more focused on video feeds coming from the cameras on their instruments.
Hospitals have generators, If power goes out during the surgery, nothing different happens. it will go unnoticed.
Wouldn't the 'Visual Pass-Through Mode' be to just remove the headset?
Also if there was a power failure - regular monitors and other equipment would also fail.
Do you even have or use Apple Vision Pro? Clearly you dont know the problem with passthrough AR.
I’m using it right now…and I have no idea what you’re talking about. The article in question is not discussing using AR pass through to perform surgeries. Perhaps go back an read the article again?
In this case, it can be both. There are risks of all sorts of things in an operating room. But the surgeons referenced in this article didn’t see to raise the concerns you’re raising here.
I use it everyday and I don’t have a problem with it.
It may not be perfect, but it’s good enough with good lighting.
I have no eye-hand coordination issues either when using passthrough.
Regardless, for this medical application, passthrough doesn’t need to be perfect as the surgeon will be primarily looking at camera feeds. Nowhere in the article or other articles show surgeons complaining about passthrough.
That's because that's only a few example which does not represent all doctors. Probably need to google some results first.
I don’t expect all doctors to agree with it, but those who have agreed have no issues with it and have been successful at using the Vision Pro to perform surgeries.
Not all doctors are open minded and willing to explore new technologies; no surprise here.
As they don't clarify this use case I'd argue it's outside the scope of the article.
Again, addressing as someone who spent much of my career as an engineer on medical devices. Have spent many hours contributing to risk assessment/hazard analysis reports for products that exist in the OR.
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If you look at it this way, anything is a risk, high or low.
In a perfect environment, the surgeon’s hand could suddenly twitch and injure the patient.
Any medicine you take has a minimal but potential side effect that could make you sick or even kill you.
You should know by now that you should always evaluate benefits vs risk.
Some people here are very rejective of the Vision Pro just because they heard some haters give their empty opinions. I don’t believe you are one of them, but being a little more positive could be beneficial to you.
I'm not criticizing the use of the device in this application. Earlier in the conversation someone questioned the 2 hour battery life to which I proposed using an external PD battery pack to the primary. The poster I responded to then suggested plugging into an outlet. I just explained why that solution would not be preferable from a hazard analysis perspective unless the use case is to remain immobile.
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