Open surgery while wearing night vision goggles

Night vision technology is nothing new. In fact, the military rely significantly on this technology during nighttime operations. A surgeon is like a medical soldier in the battlefield. His/her only mission is that of keeping people alive. Due to many technological advances, patients cannot only train on relaxation while visiting their doctors but also get distracted by playing videogames while waiting for them. Furthermore, this virtual reality experience can be enhanced if the patient wears goggles or Head Mounted Displays under dimmed or absence of lights. The purpose of this study was to test if a surgeon could operate when extending into such a dark condition situation, but in the surgical suite. Therefore, a surgeon performed seven open surgeries on rabbits. All surgeries were performed on the thorax and abdomen regions. Specifically, the surgeon was able to perform these surgeries by wearing on his head a micro camera with infrared light and a night vision goggles. The first assistant used this same system while the scrub nurse and the anesthesiologist did not. There were no complications either during or after these procedures. It is possible to make open surgeries wearing a night vision system. Further approaches should be tested with human volunteers. Keywords: Night Vision Goggles, Open Surgery, Cyber-medicine