this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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56
Doctors couldn't operate on my tumour, but this robot did — and it may have saved my life (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Doctors couldn't operate on my tumour, but this robot did — and it may have saved my life::Glenn Deir has special thanks for the robot who operated on his tonsil cancer.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This, this times 100.

I don’t know whether author has misunderstood what the Da Vinci is or whether he is intentionally misinforming his readers. From the way the article is written, one might have gotten an impression that it is the robot doing the surgery by itself. Which is total nonsense, of course.

Da Vinci is a system controlled by a surgeon-a human being- at the console. It allows procedures that would be otherwise difficult or more invasive, due to its three robotic arms being smaller size than human hands. Additionally, it eliminates tremor of real human hands, and the console itself has a sort of “pseudo-3D” screen, which grats depth perception compared to, say, laparoscopic surgical screens.

It’s been incredible tool in treatment many areas of human surgery, notably prostate cancer surgery and hysterectomy, among others. And it takes an experienced surgeon to operate it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Da Vinci's "fingers" can go where the human hand cannot. The surgery is less invasive, the complications fewer, the recovery quicker. But da Vinci is not R2-D2. It does not act autonomously. It does what its master directs, and in my case its master was Dr. Martin Corsten. He sits behind a console controlling da Vinci's arms while peering through high-definition cameras.

...

When I asked Dr. Corsten what the surgery would have looked like without da Vinci he replied, "In the good old days, we would have cut your jaw in two." That's how they got their access. The image of my jaw being split like a turkey wishbone was deeply unsettling. Radiation treatment has made even a simple tooth extraction impossible. The jaw won't heal properly. Without da Vinci, I had no surgical option.

I have thanked all my doctors profusely. But I reserve a special thank you for da Vinci.

The article is EXTREMELY clear about what Da Vinci is and why he's grateful to it. It's your comment that's total nonsense

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The headline is incredibly misleading. “Doctors couldn’t operate on my tumor” is patently false when a doctor DID operate on the tumor USING the robot. It’s deliberately stealing credit from the doctor and giving it to their tool. It’s the headline that’s nonsensical.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree. But at this point in time I'm judging anybody who hasn't yet learned to ignore the headline and read the article

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Fair enough. But it’s still valuable to express annoyance at the headline itself, which is problematic as hell.