Hey everyone, a friend of mine (loves engineering but also considering medicine) was wondering what kind of opportunities there are in academic medicine for someone interested in robotics? What fields pertain most to this interest? Is robotics in medicine a quickly growing field? Thanks for any insight you might have!
For this post, if your friend is interested in developing these systems, I'll assume your friend is an exceptional engineering student (electrical, mechanical, or biomedical) who is in the top of his/her class and regularly wins the praise of instructors (winning robotics competitions would be a big plus). If not, then s/he should seriously consider becoming such a student unless your friend just wants to be trained to use the end-product.
If your friend just wants to use surgical systems, etc., then, yeah, surgeons are using lots of cool technology, so your friend might really enjoy that. However, that's more a position in "racing the car" than developing it. Surgery is an interesting field, but is also competitive and demanding (particularly for cutting edge stuff). In that case, your friend could probably could just go the normal surgery route for whatever specialty uses the kind of technology your friend likes (urology, thoracic surgery, etc.).
In most engineering fields, you pretty much need to be one of the high fliers if you want to do the most interesting work (such as designing new surgery robot systems). Academic physicians are not the ones designing these system. Even determining how the robot is going to perform certain steps is probably going to be developed by the company or one of its research contractors. Going into medicine seems to be entirely the worst way to go (you won't learn the first thing about how to design, develop, or improve an excellent robot in medical school and surgeons who can explain the medical requirements are readily available).
After doing the requisite 4+ years as top-of-the class engineering student, the next step is for your friend to find some companies that do the kind of work he wants to do and look at the job postings. Here is the page for Intuitive Surgical, which makes the Da Vinci system. This should give an idea of the kinds of job functions that participate in providing these robots. Your friend should look into possible internships and then impress the heck out of his/her supervisors. Next thing you know, your friend will be designing surgical robots.
http://hostedjobs.openhire.com/epos...ips&startflag=2&CFID=2064299&CFTOKEN=72007340
Surgical System Networking Intern
Tracking Code
184436-609
Job Description
Assist in the development of remote surgical applications.
Construct and configure wireless networking infrastructure.
Schedule and execute technology evaluation.
Maintain and create software documentation.
Provide written status reports of technical progress.
Required Skills
Working knowledge of networking components such as wireless routers and wireless access points.
A solid understanding of wireless encryption methods is essential as well.
Experience with network (socket) programming, and working with OpenSSL tookit a plus.
Self-driven and results oriented.
Job Location
Sunnyvale, CA, US.
Position Type
Intern
Note, no medical knowledge of any kind is required. It's all about communications, software, motion coordinates, displaying information, etc.
Here is a little bit about Intuitive Surgical, so you know about how this organization started:
"The original prototype for Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci System was developed in the late 1980s at the former Stanford Research Institute under contract to the U.S. Army. While initial work was funded in the interest of developing a system for performing battlefield surgery remotely, possible commercial applications were even more compelling: It was clear to those involved that this technology could accelerate the application of a minimally invasive surgical approach to a broader range of procedures.
"In 1995, Intuitive Surgical was founded to test this theory. In January 1999, Intuitive launched the da Vinci Surgical System, and in 2000, it became the first robotic surgical system cleared by the FDA for general laparoscopic surgery. In the following years, the FDA cleared the da Vinci Surgical System for thoracoscopic (chest) surgery, for cardiac procedures performed with adjunctive incisions, urologic and gynecologic procedures.
Here is a little bit of info about some of the systems & the market:
http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2005_Groups/04/davinci.html
This appears to be interesting work in a relatively tiny but growing market. Looks like there are currently very few jobs in this compared to other areas.
