How To Find A Great Idea

Some questions to get the creative juices flowing...

 How will this (this = any thing) be different when computer chips cost less than a penny?  Someday  (soon, if you believe in Moore's Law) computing power will be so cheap that processors are incorporated into everything around us. Including the OR.   How will an operating table be different?  Will it sense pressure points and automatically adjust to relieve them? How will operating lights be different?  Will they "see" the surgeon's hands and automatically adjust?  How will surgical drains be different?  What could a "Smart Drain" do? How will sewing an anastomosis be different? Will the suture auto-adjust to tightness? 

How can this problem be solved be done without an OR? The safest surgery is one that you don't have to do. That's also the cheapest surgery.  Surgeons don't like coming up with ideas to eliminate surgery, but we need to (believe me everyone else is... IR, hospitals, payors).  If we don't ask these questions, we cannot control the answers.   How could we do an appendectomy without an OR?  If we could induce controlled apoptosis, could the body naturally seal off and digest dead or infected tissue without systemic sepsis?  How could w edo a lysis of adhesions for SBO without an OR? Could we design an adhesiolytic that could be percutaneously injected into the peritoneum and break up surgical adhesions?    

How can we "hard-wire" safety into surgery?  How can technology decrease human error? Can we decrease thermal injuries in laparoscopy by having the camera "see" which instruments are in the field and only allow cautery to fire when they are visible?  What complications could be avoided if we had real-time monitoring?  If there is a bowel injury during laparoscopy, can we have a "nose" on our camera or instrument that senses a change in the intraperitoneal atmosphere?

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