Specialties with the coolest new technologies?

[SchroedingrsCat]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Some of medicine is turning into a video game with all the gadgets in use now. What awesome new technologies have you seen and what specialties incorporate them the most?

 

[FSU2013]

Radonc and ortho come to mind. The technology in radonc is stupid advanced. Scrub in on some ortho procedures, they are fundamentally simple tools (ie carpenters tools), but it's pretty nuts seeing how things come together.

 

[KinasePro]

urology, da vinci robot ftw

 

[Amba]

urology, da vinci robot ftw

+1. That thing is awesome.

 

[Alvarez13]

urology, da vinci robot ftw

Have a friend who completed urology residency and is now going to spend a year of fellowship with some dude in Austrailia learning how to do minimally invasive procedues with the da vinci system. I'm full of jealous rage 😡

 

[KinasePro]

Have a friend who completed urology residency and is now going to spend a year of fellowship with some dude in Austrailia learning how to do minimally invasive procedues with the da vinci system. I'm full of jealous rage 😡

Sounds awesome, I'd love do something like that some day. Fellowship-trained robotic surgeons can do insanely delicate work with the da vinci.
[YOUTUBE]LzYmDbISnzY[/YOUTUBE]
Not the most riveting video in the world, but still pretty bad ass. Besides, how many other surgical specialties allow you to sit during operations? Only hand surgery comes to mind.

 

[Dr McSexy]

We have ENTs (and OB/GyNs I think)here that use the Da Vinci robot as well.

 

[Alvarez13]

Sounds awesome, I'd love do something like that some day. Fellowship-trained robotic surgeons can do insanely delicate work with the da vinci.
[YOUTUBE]LzYmDbISnzY[/YOUTUBE]
Not the most riveting video in the world, but still pretty bad ass. Besides, how many other surgical specialties allow you to sit during operations? Only hand surgery comes to mind.

I would totally be the ********* that gets caught preparing dinner with the surgical robot.

I feel like there's a premise for some type of surgical food network show here, but it's just too jumbled in my head right now.

 

[ZagDoc]

I'm partial to my specialty, but in ENT we use endoscopes, flexible scopes, microscopes, lasers, robotics, saws, plates, and CT-guided surgery. If you like using cool toys in small spaces, check us out 🙂

 

[RestoreSight]

Ophtho. Everything is in minature. Its like being a watchmaker. Tiny screws, tiny tools, lasers, microscopes, folding IOLs. The eye is the coolest organ by far!

 

[akwho]

I'm doing research for an ENT this summer who uses the Da Vinici system. It is fascinating at a fundamental level. Barring regulatory legislation it is possible that a surgeon could preform battlefield surgery from thousands of miles away with a field machine and a tech who knew how to prep the patient.

 

[Doctor D]

Interventional radiology

 

[armybound]

robots are ok, but uro is awesome otherwise. tons of sweet technology.

 

[WellWornLad]

robots are ok, but uro is awesome otherwise. tons of sweet technology.

Agreed. As a urologist you can spend your days doing big surgeries like nephrectomies and neobladders, DaVinci prostatectomies, small but fun stuff like blasting renal stones with lasers, radonc stuff like seed implants. No other surgical specialty has quite the diversity in both invasiveness and procedural technique.

The clinic is awful though. And you have to spend your career explaining to everyone that you are in fact a surgeon and don't spend your days looking at male genitalia and prescribing viagra.

 

[MilkmanAl]

IR and rad-onc spring to mind. Anything physics-y gets me every time. 😛

 

[WellWornLad]

I was less than impressed during my radonc rotation in med school. They do have a lot of powerful software and imposing machines that turn out dangerous amounts of radiation, but the docs interact with that software on the level of MS Paint (drawing rather casual circles around tumors) and hardly have anything to do with running the actual linear accelerators or HDR machines. They have an army of physicists, dosimetrists and techs to do that.

 

[Cmaster]

urology, da vinci robot ftw

I saw one of those machine in a surgery center, pretty neat stuff

 

[Poetic Silence]

I was less than impressed during my radonc rotation in med school. They do have a lot of powerful software and imposing machines that turn out dangerous amounts of radiation, but the docs interact with that software on the level of MS Paint (drawing rather casual circles around tumors) and hardly have anything to do with running the actual linear accelerators or HDR machines. They have an army of physicists, dosimetrists and techs to do that.

My rad onc shadowing experience was kind of a let down for me as well. The technology is awesome, but the patient interaction is just not enough to satisfy me.

 

[smartreader]

It's nice to read about all the cool technology being used by different specialities: Let me throw my subspecialty into the mix: Gastroenterology. As a fourth year GI fellow, we spend half of every day in the endoscopy unit performing EGDs and Colons - Here is the technology we regularly use:

1) Argon Plasma Coagulation - Basically an endoscopic blow torch that we use to treat vascular lesions of the GI tract.

2) Polypectomy/Biopsies - There are varies different ways of doing this: Snare Cautery, Cold Biopsy forceps, Piecemeal biopsies.

3) Hemostasis:
-Hemoclips - endoscopic clips that help approximate tissue to treat ulcers, etc.
-Endoscopic Injection - used to inject Epinephrine for hemostasis. Also used to tattoo the mucosa if there is a suspected lesion that may need to be re-visualized in the future.
-BiCAP - Electrical probes that cauterize bleeding ulcers, high risk lesions -
-Hemospray - A nanopowder with coagulating abilities
-Variceal banding - for acute variceal bleeds (FUN 🙂)

4) PEG/PEJ tube insertion using the flexible endoscope for direct visual placement.

5) Endoscopic Mucosal Resection - Different systems currently being used to resect submocosal malignant lesions.

6) ERCP - Used mainly for therapeutic stenting, stone removal, and occasionally to obtain tissue samples.

7) EUS - Endoscopic ultrasound - used to stage malignant tumors. Also used to help facilitate endoscopic draining of abcess, cysts, etc either by EGD or Colonoscopy.

8) Luminal stenting - stenting of the Colon, Esophagus, Pylorus, etc for malignant lesions

9) Endoscopic Dilatation - for achalasia, esophageal strictures, pyloric stenosis...

10) Narrow Band Imaging/Chromoendoscopy - new technology being used to filter white light - leaving a narrow spectrum of light to better visualize malignant/premalignant lesions

11) Capsule Endoscopy - For Small bowel imaging

12) Push/Baloon Enteroscopy - A large Enterescope for the small bowel -

13) Bariatric Procedures - Gastric Baloons, Jejunal Sleeves etc for weight loss

14) Novel Techonologies - Confocol laser endomicroscopy - basically making the Gastroenterologist a Pathologist by helping to identify malignant lesions ASAP - so that immediate therapeutic intervention can be offered (at least that is the hope), ETC, ETC... There is a multitude of different technologies being developed right now -

Basically - GI is exploding from a technological point of view. No better time to get involved 🙂

 

[mimelim]

I'm pretty sure Vascular Surgery wins this without much competition.

Laproscopic robotics (DaVinci) for aortas (still in trial/animal models)

Endovascular robotics (Hansen)

All of the goodies that the other surgical fields get, (most things on the Uro list above me) as well as laproscopic vein harvesting. PLUS everything IR gets.

Like I said... Win 🙂

 

[taco bell]

+ 1 for ophthalmology

Some of the most recent retinal, and corneal techniques and instruments are amazing, and so detail oriented -- no wonder they say the eye is the window to the soul😀

 

[neusu]

I'll throw the neurosurgery hat in the ring.

We have computer guided stereotactic guidance, intraoperative CT/MRI/photo fluoroscopy, radiosurgery, endoscopic skull base, vascular interventional neurosurgery, and minimally invasive/laser spine.

Not to mention neurosurgery research with brain gate (brain computer interfaces), spine bridge (using computers to take signals proximal to a spinal cord injury and project them distally), as well as stem cell and gene therapy for glioblastoma, parkinson/alzheimers, and spinal cord injury.