Possible miscommunications between the surgeon and the surgical nurse are avoided, and the surgical nurse is free to perform other tasks. Also, the surgeon has a jitter-free image to view the operating scene. These include additional robotic manipulators or arms under the surgeon's control, the use of voice commands to control the position of the laparoscope and finer controls of the robotic arms, including the filtering out of tremors to the levels required in microsurgical suturing. The advancing capabilities of robotic systems are opening the door for new and safer endoscopic procedures. Potentially limiting the number of surgical nurses required to assist in these procedures represents significant cost savings.
Patients also benefit whenever endoscopic procedures are elected.
Minimally invasive endoscopic procedures result in less patient trauma and discomfort, as well as much faster recovery times. For example, conventional open-heart surgery, which now requires a lengthy incision and splitting open the patient's breast bone to give surgeons access to the heart, will only necessitate a few small incisions with endoscopic technology. For more information, contact Patricia McGuire at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Phase I and II contracts, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, chemical detector company has developed a two-chemistry badge for monitoring exposure and risk analysis of toxic vapors. GMD Systems of Bacharach, Inc., developed for Kennedy a two-chemistry colorimetric monitoring dosimeter badge that detects Hz and MMH vapors.