The McGill University Health Centre’s Surgical Performance Enhancement and Robotics Centre is hoping to “contribute to the shaping of the future of surgery” with the use of cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence.

Montreal

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

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The McGill University Health Centre has unveiled its new Surgical Performance Enhancement and Robotics Centre, which focuses on integrating cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence into surgical procedures. This initiative is aimed at revolutionizing surgical practices, with the facility's team of over 15 students and 10 specialty collaborators working to develop advanced surgical technologies. 

Terry Sarcobot, named after Terry Fox, is one of the center's robotic innovations designed to assist in the precise removal of cancers, minimizing incision size and blood loss. These robots are intended to augment a surgeon's physical capabilities and skill set. They operate based on cues from surgeons, either in the room or remotely, and are programmed to follow expert surgical techniques.

Through the use of these robotic systems, particularly in orthopedic surgery, the technology incorporates markers and robotic arms to align bones during surgery. The center's goal is not to replace human surgeons but to enhance surgical precision and expand what can be achieved in medical procedures. As this technology continues to evolve, it is expected to bring significant advancements in the medical field over the coming years.



Robotic surgery centre using AI opens at Montreal hospital

This is our robot, we called it Terry Sarcobot, Terry for Terry Fox. The idea of these robots is to help us remove these very deadly cancers as precisely as possible with less cutting, less blood loss, more precision. The Surgical Performance Enhancement and Robotics is a part of our department to contribute to the shaping of the future of the surgery. It has more than 15 students and we have more than 10 specialty collaborators working with us developing surgical technologies based on robotics and AI. Our robots are not going to replace surgeons, rather they are there to augment their physical capability, to augment their skills. Now with that said, we want to develop artificial intelligence that basically learns from expert surgeons and transfers that knowledge to our robots. These are programs, right? They sit on a robot controller and they basically get cues from surgeons in the room or remote and they operate under their command. This is the project that is used for the orthopedic surgery. With this technology they attach some markers and also using the robotic arm to align the bones during the surgery. Technology will never replace a surgeon, but it will, I say, heighten our senses and with this technology, not only robots, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, everything combined, we're able to attain things that are unimaginable in the medical field and I think it will change in the next five years in something drastically different.

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