We’ve seen Google Glass used by celebrities, adventurers and travellers. But what if it was used by doctors? For Dr Selene Parekh in North Carolina, Google Glass has become a welcome addition to his scrubs.
Dr Parekh, an orthopedic surgeon at Duke Medical Center, recently wore his Google Glasses while he performed surgery on a motorcycle crash victim. With a simple voice command, Parekh began filming the procedure and caught every step from his perspective.
This isn’t the first time Google Glass has been used in surgery. Parekh has been using the technology to record surgeries since last year and other doctors have also recognised the benefits. With this device surgeons can livestream procedures to medical students and consult with colleagues who aren’t present. Most importantly of all, it doesn’t impede on the procedure.
For Dr. Parekh, the next step is to use Google Glass to livestream feeds of his operations to orthopaedic surgeons in India. He said:
“In India, foot and ankle surgery is about 40 years behind where we are in the U.S. […] So to be able to use Glass to broadcast this and have orthopedic surgeons around the world watch and learn from expert surgeons in the U.S. would be tremendous.”
Other possibilities are also being explored by software developers who are taking the Glasses a step further for medicine by creating programs that allow doctors to use the Glass as a medical dashboard.
Pediatric surgeon, Dr. Oliver J. Muensterer recently published the first peer-reviewed study on using Google Glass in clinical medicine. He said:
“I’m sure we’re going to use this in medicine. Not the current version, but a version in the future that is specially made for health care with all the privacy, hardware and software issues worked out.”
Although there is still work to be done to refine the technology for use in the medical industry, many doctors are eager to use Google Glass in their practice. The device is currently being offered to “explorers” to test out different ways it can be used but is not yet available to the public.
Information and image sourced from The New York Times.