Gesture-controlled computers

and robotic nurses being

developed for operating rooms

Although surgeons need to frequently review medical images and records during surgery, they’re also in the difficult position of not being able to touch non-sterile objects such as keyboards, computer mice or touchscreens. Stepping away from the operating table to check a computer also adds time to a procedure. Researchers from Indiana’s Purdue University are addressing this situation by developing gesture-recognition systems for computers, so that surgeons can navigate through and manipulate screen content simply by moving their hands in the air. The system could additionally be used with robotic scrub nurses, also being developed at Purdue, to let the devices know what instruments the surgeon wants handed to them.

The system incorporates a Microsoft Kinect camera (yes, from the gaming system) and specialized algorithms to recognize hand gestures as instructions.

“One challenge will be to develop the proper shapes of hand poses and the proper hand trajectory movements to reflect and express certain medical functions,” said Juan Pablo Wachs, an assistant professor of industrial engineering. “You want to use intuitive and natural gestures for the surgeon, to express medical image navigation activities, but you also need to consider cultural and physical differences between surgeons. They may have different preferences regarding what gestures they may want to use.”

There are also other considerations that the researchers are taking into account in the design of the system. For instance, they don’t want surgeons to be required to wear special types of gloves or colors of clothing in order for their hands to be “read.” The system should also be able to recognize and respond to gestures quickly, and provide confirmation that it understands the request. At the same time, however, it should not accidentally respond to extraneous gestures, such as those made to colleagues in the room.

The Purdue team also want the system to be relatively inexpensive, and to be quickly and easily adaptable to different operating rooms, lighting conditions, and other variables.

The system could be particularly effective when combined with the robotic scrub nurses, although they wouldn’t be intended to replace human nurses in all situations. “While it will be very difficult using a robot to achieve the same level of performance as an experienced nurse who has been working with the same surgeon for years, often scrub nurses have had very limited experience with a particular surgeon, maximizing the chances for misunderstandings, delays and sometimes mistakes in the operating room,” Wachs said. “In that case, a robotic scrub nurse could be better.”

While other groups have also researched the use of robotic scrub nurses, Wachs claims that his is the first to look into the incorporation of gesture – instead of voice – recognition. The Purdue system is also apparently unique in that it uses advanced algorithms to predict where the surgeon’s hands will be next, or what screen images will next be requested.

Sourcd & published by Henry Sapiecha

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‘Kermit the killer’:

doctor stands accused of

eight murders in

‘house of horrors’

January 20, 2011 – 4:35PM

The “house of horrors”… The Women’s Medical Society in Philadelphia, where Dr Kermit Gosnell allegedly made millions from abortions. Photo: AP

A US doctor, who gave abortions to minorities, immigrants and poor women in a “house of horrors” clinic, has been charged with eight counts of murder over the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors say.

Dr Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said.

State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. 

Nine of Gosnell’s employees were also charged.

Gosnell “induced labour, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord”, Williams said.

Patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society, where Gosnell performed dozens of abortions a day, prosecutors said. He mostly worked overnight hours after his untrained staff administered drugs to induce labour during the day, they said.

Early last year, authorities went to investigate drug-related complaints at the clinic and stumbled on what Williams called a “house of horrors”.

Bags and bottles holding aborted foetuses “were scattered throughout the building,” Williams said. “There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose.”

The clinic was shut down and Gosnell’s medical licence was suspended after the raid.

Gosnell and four workers were charged with murder, while five others were charged with controlled drug violations and other crimes. None of the employees had any medical training, and one, a high school student, performed intravenous anaesthesia with potentially lethal narcotics, Williams said.

All 10 defendants were taken into custody, authorities said.

Two listed numbers for Gosnell in Philadelphia have been disconnected. Defence lawyer William J. Brennan, who represented Gosnell during the investigation, noted that the doctor served patients in a low-income city neighbourhood for decades.

“Obviously, these allegations are very, very serious,” Brennan said.

The grand jury said the woman who died was a patient who came to Gosnell’s clinic for an abortion and died of cardiac arrest because she was given too much Demerol. Gosnell wasn’t at the clinic at the time, but directed his staff to administer the drug to keep the woman, a healthy 41-year-old, sedated until he arrived, prosecutors said.

Gosnell has been named in at least 46 malpractice suits, including one over the death of a 22-year-old mother who died of sepsis and a perforated uterus in 2000. Many others also involve perforated uteruses. Gosnell sometimes sewed up the injury without telling women their uteruses had been perforated, prosecutors said.

Gosnell charged $325 for first-trimester abortions and $1600 to $3000 for abortions up to 30 weeks. Abortions are legal up to 24 weeks gestation in Pennsylvania, although most doctors won’t perform them after 20 weeks, prosecutors said.

Some women came from across the mid-Atlantic for the illegal late-term abortions, authorities said. White women from the suburbs were ushered into a separate, slightly cleaner area because Gosnell believed they were more likely to file complaints, Williams said.

“People knew near and far that if you needed a late-term abortion you could go see Dr Gosnell,” Williams said.

Few if any of the sedated women knew their babies were born alive and then killed, prosecutors said. Many were first-time mothers who were told they were 24 weeks pregnant, even if they were further along, authorities said.

Gosnell got his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and is board certified in family practice. He started, but did not finish, a residency in obstetrics-gynaecologic, authorities said.

“He does not know how to do an abortion. He’s not board certified,” Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said. “Once he got them there, he saw dollar signs and did abortions that other people wouldn’t do.”

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‘Cured’ cancer patients died, court told

Hellfried Sartori … admitted lying to authorities.

TWO dozen cancer patients, including a six-year-old Sydney girl, died after treatment ordered by a doctor who is a convicted fraud.

Hellfried Sartori is the Austrian at the centre of an inquest into the deaths of five people in Perth in 2005.

Yesterday in the Coroner’s Court he was confronted with sensational evidence dealing with 25 people, all but one of whom are known to have died after treatment with his ”cure” for cancer.

The 25 people were treated in Darwin, Perth, Sydney, South West Rocks and at his clinic in Thailand. The fate of one is not known. The court heard police are investigating some of the deaths but most were never checked because it was assumed they were terminally ill.

It is not suggested that Mr Sartori’s treatments directly caused the 24 deaths. Instead, the proliferation of deaths, from late 2004 to 2006, was raised by counsel assisting the coroner to counter Sartori’s claim that he could cure 98 per cent of all cancer patients, including those with highly advanced metastatic cancer.

Celia Kemp suggested to Mr Sartori that he could only see success and not failure, that his clinical skills were deficient, that he had lied and exaggerated about his treatment as part of luring sick people into paying him for dubious treatments, and that his success rate for curing cancer was zero.

Mr Sartori replied that 50 per cent of the cure for cancer was positive thinking by the patient. He conceded he had exaggerated about the efficacy of his treatments, insisted he could cure cancer and admitted lying to Australian authorities. ”If any treatment has proved benefits, it is this treatment,” he told the court. ”And I have not violated my Hippocratic oath.”

Five patients died in Perth when Mr Sartori, who at the time was in Thailand and had been barred from entering Australia, directed two registered nurses, via email and telephone, to treat seven cancer patients.

All were given intravenous infusions of caesium chloride, magnesium and potassium, various vitamins and other chemicals. Coffee enemas were administered and there was a dietary regime of juices.

Sandra McCarty of Victoria, Pia Bosso of NSW and Deborah Gruber of New York were among those who died. Two others died of cancer some time after the treatment.

The court was told that the deaths of Lesley Bramston, Lila Notley and Anne Martin, who were treated personally by Mr Sartori when he was in Darwin in late 2004 and early 2005, were under investigation. It also heard Mr Sartori treated Jasmine Nikhoul, 6, of NSW, who had leukaemia, in early 2005. She died in May 2005.

Mr Sartori in some cases insisted he had cured them of cancer. In Mrs Bramston’s case, he claimed she was ”basically more than on her last legs” and as in some cases turned out ”to be too sick to care”.

He attributed some deaths to ”contributory factors”, including other underlying illnesses. In one case he blamed a patient’s partner, saying ”she had the misfortune to be an apparently well-off lady who had a companion who was hoping to get to her funds” and who neglected her care.

In another fatal case he blamed the patient for ”eating pizza and getting drunk every night”. Another was said not to have followed the treatment program.

Mr Sartori, a convicted fraudster who has been jailed at least twice in the US, recently spent two years in jail in Thailand for fraud and practising without a licence.

Appearing under summons at the Perth inquest, he asked for the evidence about the 25 patients to be struck from the record, saying it was ”unfair and utterly shocking” to be presented with a two-page list of cases ”without being given any warning whatsoever … this can only be described as an ambush”.

The Deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker declined his request, saying he had plenty of notice to attend and the court had heard during the opening address that mention would be made of the cases.

In other evidence yesterday, Mr Sartori admitted lying when he applied, unsuccessfully, to register as a doctor in Australia. He also conceded that academic articles about caesium chloride treatment, which he published in 1984 and which had been peer-reviewed, did not include crucial material that about 10 of 50 patients he treated with caesium in 1981-982 had it administered intravenously. Of the 50, 25 died within a year.

His evidence has contained sweeping references to statistics available on the internet, the laws of physics, and his claims that 10,000 people were alive because of his caesium chloride remedies.

The coroner described the medical records kept by the nurses at the Perth house during the treatments as ”appalling”. She said Mr Sartori condoned ”unethical” behaviour by one of his acolytes, Paul Rana of Melbourne, a disgraced alternative therapist who demanded thousands of dollars from terminally ill patients and who was jailed in 2008 for not co-operating with consumer affairs investigators.

Mr Sartori is due to return to Austria this weekend. Mr Rana is expected to give evidence next year.

Sourced & p[ublished by Henry Sapiecha

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Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 27th April 2010

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