Computers in Surgery :: Informative

Computers in Surgery Implementing Computers into surgery is a new and exciting area of study. It has only been in the past 20 years that computers have started to be incorporated with surgery. In 1989, abstracts of the surgical literature were being distributed on 5.25-inch floppy disks. These abstracts were then used in medical operations and evaluations. Doctors could travel though menus in the abstracts and eventually targeting a solution, procedure, or cause of illnesses. This made the time it takes to flip through pages and pages of medical journals and textbooks less expansive and cumbersome. Doctors have now gotten to the point where laptops are brought into surgery and are used to aid doctors and nurses. Instead of saying â€Å"Nurse, scalpel,† surgeons ask their nurses to find information on the laptops. Besides holding information, Computers can also be used to manipulate tools and other things in the operating room. Mechanical arms are often used to perform procedures. Sometimes a computer is used to navigate cameras inside of the human body in order to locate tumors and blockages. Computers are also used to analyze images taken before surgery. Dr. Ninian Peckitt uses software to analyze a CAT scan images in order to understand his patient’s skull. The program in the computer actually directions for making full size replicas of patients heads. In conclusion, there is a huge advancement being made as far as computer aided surgeries go. From holding information, analyzing problems, delivering solutions, to performing operations, computers are the next step in medical tools.