The Fire Ant Gazette - A Midland, Texas Blog

Rambling
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Thursday, May 26, 2005 at 05:59 PM [GMT-6]

Note: For your peace of mind and overall well-being, the following post is certified to be 100% Content Free™.

I've found the perfect byline for this here blog, courtesy of my hero, Wally. "I used to read, but it's faster to make up stuff."

Let's see...at this time of day on Tuesday, it was 103°; today it's 64. But I'm not going to whine about it like some other blogger I know.

OK, I don't really know him.

If Cowtown Pattie feeds you some line about being all cozy with the Potential Next Governor of Texas, ask her for proof. I'll bet all she shows you is a scribbled-on ball cap. And the writing doesn't even look Jewish.

Speaking of Kinky, I'm reading his book, 'Scuse Me While I Whip This Out (quick...from which movie cometh that quote?), which I inexplicably received as a Christmas present, and which I almost forgot about. It's very funny, and I may start running random Kinky quotes on this here blog, absent any self-generated humor of my own (is that redundant?).

How's this for coincidence? I picked up a new website client yesterday...another surgeon based in Odessa who specializes in minimally-invasive robotic surgery...and he's not related to the previous client with those same credentials. The first guy is a cardiothoracic surgeon; this new guy is a urologist. Whole different, um, ballgame.

And speaking of robot surgeons, I didn't realize until now that Odessa's Alliance Hospital has the only da Vinci Surgical System™ between Fort Worth and El Paso (and it's not for certain that El Paso has one. Lubbock's getting one.). Based on what I've seen thus far, if you've got to go under the knife, this is the way to do it.

I apologize if that previous item appears to violate the content-free certfication at the top of the page. Maybe you should just assume that I made it up.

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Comments

Oooooh, ooo ... ooo!

"Blazing Saddles"

Posted by: Jeff at May 26, 2005 06:08 PM

You are obviously a gentleman of impeccable culture and refinement. ;-)

Posted by: Eric at May 26, 2005 06:34 PM

Takes one to know one ... ;-)

Posted by: Jeff at May 26, 2005 08:29 PM

Wow. The photo on the Intuitive Surgical site is more than a little scary.
That big robotic arm, presumably with knives and lasers attached to it, is hovering over some hidden man's nether region.

I sincerely hope that man is fully and deeply unconscious.

I mean, I'm sure it's perfectly safe and all. But I've seen enough sci fi movies that this will make me shudder over and over again today.

Posted by: Brian at May 27, 2005 06:59 AM

Brian, the reality is precisely what you perceive. The doc sits across the room from the robot (I assume he wants to stay out of the way in case it flips out and starts slicing up the operating assistants), head pressed against a viewing port which is actually a video monitor. He controls the four arms of the robot (the one in Odessa is a stripped-down model, having only three arms) via "waldos" (ever read Heinlein?).

The robot arms have remarkable range of motion, precision and sensitivity. I watched a video of a doc doing some very intricate suturing and I have to say that it looked less dangerous than meaty fingertips supervised by sweat-dripped eyeballs.

If the doc needs a different instrument (say, a 9mm hex key, or a 3/4" deep socket), he just pulls the arm back and one of the attendants mounts the required tool.

The headrest where the doc peers in to control the proceedings doubles as a sort of dead-man switch. The instant his forehead loses contact, the robot shuts down and freezes in place.

Well, that's their story, anyway.

Posted by: Eric at May 27, 2005 08:54 AM

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