A surgeon in the United Kingdom, Shafi Ahmed, will be conducting the procedure to be viewed with a VR headset.
A cancer patient in the U.K. will be undergoing surgery on April 14 at 1p.m. local time, and the surgeon, Dr. Shafi Ahmed, will be using virtual reality technology linked to a mobile phone in order to be able to let others experience the live-stream of the entire procedure.
This will allow the surgery to be viewed by people around the world, as though seeing it from a massive operating theater.
The surgeon has been among those at the very head of pioneering virtual reality technology for the purposes of using it in surgery. He believes that the upcoming VR streamed surgery will be a game changer when it comes to medical education and health care innovation. The patient who will be undergoing the surgery currently has colon cancer. He is a man in his 70s and is not being identified by name, but he has said that he is quite excited about the thought that an international medical community will be viewing his procedure.
The operation will be viewable through the use of virtual reality technology headsets at Royal London hospital.
The operation will be filmed through the use of a number of different specialist cameras that will be positioned above the operating table. It is expected that the surgery will continue for two to three hours. The streaming of the surgery will run at a lag of about a minute behind the procedure itself, in case any unforeseen complications should occur.
The use of VR technology could be a very promising experience for trainee physicians who have traditionally needed to try to stand out of the way of the actual surgeons while essentially trying to see over their shoulders. In this case, they will be able to wear headsets and see exactly what is going on, as though they are right there in the operating room with the best possible viewing position. It will also be possible for them to change their viewing angle in order to get a better look at something they wish to see.
Dr. Ahmed discussed the virtual reality technology live streaming of the surgery and explained that “It showcases virtual reality for what it should be used for – education.”
The Oculus Rift has been greatly anticipated and yet now that it’s entering the market, it’s doing so without fanfare.
With the debut of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, many people would have expected that there would come with the launch of a huge marketing campaign, or at least a glitzy launch party, but that is not the case.
Unlike with the launches of new smartphones and game consoles, the Oculus Rift is simply being slipped onto shelves.
The early adopters who pre-ordered their virtual reality headsets will be receiving theirs just as they would any other package that they’ve ordered, except in this case they needed to be willing to drop $600 in order to obtain it. For many, it came as a surprise that the Oculus Rift launch was simply a matter of putting the product out there to buy and that it didn’t come with a huge amount of noise. With the amount of effort the company had put into bringing exposure during the time before the launch, it seems that the launch itself was rather anticlimactic.
The virtual reality headset has come a very long way since it was first designed out of smartphone parts.
It is now a form of wearable technology that provides an immersive VR experience that is miles away from the nauseating effects for which similar inventions were known a couple of decades ago.
In 2014, Oculus was acquired by Facebook for a hefty $2 billion. Since then, it has put out a number of wearable technology headset devices meant exclusively for developers. That said, The consumer version of the Oculus Rift was rolled out on Monday. It could be that the lack of noise is the result of the first wave having already been sold out. Pre-orders bought out the entire stock and fresh devices won’t be available to purchase until the summer.
For that reason, it could be that there wasn’t really the need for a lot of hoopla with the launch, as there was enough of a racket made over this virtual reality headset to sell it out before its launch even happened. What will be interesting is to see what the early adopters will think of these devices and the VR experience they provide. It will also help to answer questions that people have been having with regards to whether or not they will cause health issues or even motion sickness among users.
The operation will be filmed through the use of a number of different specialist cameras that will be positioned above the operating table. It is expected that the surgery will continue for two to three hours. The streaming of the surgery will run at a lag of about a minute behind the procedure itself, in case any unforeseen complications should occur.