Patent ID: 6937885

Claim:
A medical instrument comprising: a first-stage optic responsive to illumination of a viable tissue of a patient; a spectral separator optically responsive to the first stage optic and having a control input; an imaging sensor optically responsive to the spectral separator and having an image data output; and a diagnostic processor having an image acquisition interface with an input responsive to the imaging sensor; a filter control interface having a control output provided to the control input of the spectral separator, which directs the spectral separator independently of the illumination to receive wavelengths of the illumination that provide multispectral or hyperspectral information as determined by a set of instructions from a diagnostic protocol module; and a general-purpose operating module, and a plurality of diagnostic protocol modules; wherein each diagnostic protocol module is organ or tissue specific and contains the set of instructions for operating the spectral separator via the filter control interface and for operating the image acquisition interface.