Robots, anesthesia, canada rules yet again suckers, drugs, mad medicine, mcgill, mcsleepy...

Meet McSleepy, the World's First Robot Anesthesiologist

Anesthesiologists are required to participate in every surgery, standing by to administer drugs and monitor the patient's vital signs while surgeons do their jobs. But now a group of researchers at Montreal's McGill University have invented a device that could replace human anesthesiologists with robots in the next five years. An anesthesia bot called McSleepy has just successfully completed its first surgery, administering drugs to a patient undergoing a tumor removal on his kidney.

McGill anesthesiologist Thomas M. Hemmerling, who helped develop McSleepy, says:

We have been working on closed-loop systems, where drugs are administered, their effects continuously monitored, and the doses are adjusted accordingly, for the last five years. Think of "McSleepy" as a sort of humanoid anesthesiologist that thinks like an anesthesiologist, analyses biological information and constantly adapts its own behavior, even recognizing monitoring malfunction.

Given that anesthesia can be one of the most potentially deadly parts of an operation, I'm curious about how hospitals will handle insurance for McSleepy. Or malpractice suits. This is probably less of an issue in places like Canada than in the U.S., which has a really litigious culture around malpractice issues. Maybe that means McSleepy will never make his way over stateside.

I still can't decide if I'd feel safer or less safe with a robot monitoring my anesthesia. At least it wouldn't fall prey to human error — only to operating system crashes.

McGill News via The Biotech Weblog

11:39 AM on Fri May 2 2008
By Annalee Newitz
650 views
10 comments

Comments

Log1c at 11:52 AM on 05/02/08
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I always like it when my control systems are closed loop... Especially when they have drugs that could kill you.
Fwiffo at 02:08 PM on 05/02/08
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McSleepy is how I feel after binging on fast food. Then I get McRegret.

As a victim of 'human error' while being anethatised once, I can only welcome tech like this.
DocGratis at 02:17 PM on 05/02/08
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Oh big deal all anesthesiologist do is tape their fingers together in boredom... (inside joke)

I'm pretty sure there are things you would need a human todo..

But still cool anyways..
Brock at 02:56 PM on 05/02/08
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If McSleep kills fewer people than real doctors do there should be no liability at all in the absence of gross negligence from the hospital. Too many cases are decided on "What's a perfect result" vs. "What are my alternatives?" You should never discourage people from helping you.
Gann at 03:36 PM on 05/02/08
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Gives a whole new meaning to blue screen of death.
SuhinaNumerius at 03:54 PM on 05/02/08
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"If McSleep kills fewer people than real doctors do there should be no liability at all in the absence of gross negligence from the hospital" erm.... presumably someone is going to have to program the machine prior to each surgery (and load it with drugs, etc). If this is the case then it is not free from human error as the person who sets it up is...human...and, er, prone to error! If they get a doctor to set it up before surgery and programme the thing then it kind of defeats the object of having a machine in the first place. If, on the other hand, they get some underpaid technician prepare the machine... are mistakes not just as likely as a doctor that has years of experience anyway? I think it would be interesting to see how well the machine could cope with events that are not planned for... like spotting the signs of pulmonary embolism or hyperkalaemia for instance... Sam (UK)
RAHfanboy at 07:27 PM on 05/02/08
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I'm holding out for the Psystar clone.
phoenix at 08:08 PM on 05/03/08
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@Fwiffo: Agreed. I get the McBrick in my stomach afterwards. Not a pleasant feeling.

Yeah - this sounds like a terrible idea, but only because admittedly I fear automation for such a delicate and potentially life-ending process. If the track record turns out better than humans, I can't argue.
Aethyr at 02:48 PM on 05/04/08
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Connectedness Index: 357

So basically, if there's a power outage during a surgery...the patient is screwed.

This can't ever replace a human anesthesiologist. While humans may make mistakes, they don't require electricity/batteries to run.
t1333 at 04:47 PM on 05/04/08
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So many negative comments! I think this is great place for automation. Our lives are in the hand of machines all the time: elevators, fly by wire planes, etc. Its a boring and routine job, it should be done by a machine.