The Clinical Robotic Surgery Association (CRSA) will hold its first meeting October 9-10, 2009, just prior to the 95th annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons’ Clinical Congress, at the at Swissotel Chicago. A major live-transmission demonstration is being organized by the Division of Minimally Invasive, General & Robotic Surgery in the Surgery Department of the UIC College of Medicine and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) in the Computer Science Department of the UIC College of Engineering. The goal is to showcase how visualization and networking technologies can advance research and education among remote robotic surgery sites.

Using video-teleconferencing systems provided, in part, by Cisco Systems, at least four different sites will be able to see and assist with two simultaneous robotic surgeries: an operator will switch between two operations taking place in separate rooms at the University of Illinois Hospital, with only one being dynamically broadcast at a time; a remote expert at EVL will be able to observe the operations and make comments while retrieving and examining relevant medical images; and, CRSA attendees will be able to observe first-hand the surgical techniques and skills required. In the future, advanced networks and large-scale visualization displays will enable experts to virtually consult on operations while quickly retrieving patient records and high-resolution medical imagery, regardless of where the information is stored, and will enable students to watch and learn by being virtually inside the operating room during procedures.

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