Computer Support for Surgery

Software	None
Covers	HCI, AI, CAD, Design computing
Skills Required	Some interest in graphics, some interest in artificial intelligence, ideally some interest in medical science and psychology
Challenge	Conceptual ??? Technical ?? Programming

Brief Description

Surgery is a complex task, requiring planning and preparation, as well as rapid decision making in situations when errors can be catastrophic. Surgery is an ancient skill enhanced by a range of modern technologies. What can computers do to enable surgeons to do their work more efficiently or better?

The aim of this project is to investigate what computer support exists for surgeons before and during surgery, beyond displays of instrument measurements, and consider how emerging computer technology can be used to make some activities easier or more effective.

Extensions

One extension would be to specify and design a potentially useful computer tool for surgeons, and consider what would be involved in building it. Here the value of the work (and the assessment) would depend on the sophistication of the analysis of user needs, the consideration of human computer interaction issues, and the understanding of the technical feasilibity of the proposal.

If there are significantly different computer tools supporting different approaches to one or more of the tasks involved in surgery, the project would gain from an analysis of what the models of the human activities are and the functionality they require, and the consequences of different human computer interaction decisions.

Variants

It might be wise to focus the project tightly on one kind of computer support for surgery, rather than look at different kinds of technologies. This might involve focusing on one type of surgery such as heart surgery, or cosmetic or reconstructive surgery on faces.

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