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"Science Fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it, including all established facts and natural laws."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Medical Mantis | ||
| A medical telefactoring device; allows a physician to remotely examine patients and perform procedures. |
Telefactor devices are beginning to appear in the practice of medicine. The medical mantis provides a well-written glimpse at something we may all encounter someday.
| There's this praying mantis a meter long, all black with chrome trim, hanging upside down from the ceiling of the Medical cubby. ..it hovers over his face, jointed arms clicking and dipping like crazy articulated chopsticks... The mantis stops in midmotion, its antennae quivering... "Hello, er-Gerry, isn't it?" it says at last. "I'm Dr. Troyka." Fischer remembers: the medical equipment can't always do everything on its own. Sometimes, when things get too complicated, it calls up the line to a human backup. "Wow," says the mantis. "What happened to you?" |
| Technovelgy from Starfish,
by Peter Watts. Published by Tor Books in 1999 Additional resources -
|
This sequence is great fun in the novel. It hints a little at the paranoid mindset of some of the characters.
In the real world, a variety of devices have appeared to assist physician's in the performance of their duties. For example, RoboDoc Robotic Surgical Assistant from Integrated Surgical Systems has been providing assistance to physicians doing hip replacement surgery since 1992. The device
"... mills a cavity in the femur for the placement of a prosthetic implant. The system is designed to accurately shape the cavity for a precise fit and precise positioning of the implants in the cavity for optimum biomechanics."
For the first reference (anywhere! as far as I know) to a machine that would allow a physician to examine a patient at a distance, see the telemedicine apparatus from E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops, published in 1909.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Starfish
More Ideas
and Technology by Peter Watts
Tech news articles related to Starfish
Tech news articles related to works by Peter Watts
Medical Mantis-related
news articles:
- da Vinci Surgical Robot: Dr.'s Helper
- InTouch Companion: Medical Rounding Robot
- NEEMO 7 - NASA Undersea Robotic Telemedicine Experiment
| 3D Printed Organs From Space |
| Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor |
| NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI) |
| MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User |
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
