Blake Hannaford, Ph.D.
Department of Electrical Engineering (BioRobotics Lab)
"The Healing Touch:  Haptics and Biomechanics of Surgery"


ABSTRACT

Surgery is the ultimate "hands-on" medical therapy.  It has been performed for
thousands of years.    New technologies are radically transforming many
aspects of surgery and changing the paradigm of surgical training.   These
include surgical robot systems and surgical simulators. Both of these
technologies involve haptic interfaces --- human computer interaction
technology which supports physical touching and interacting with remote or
virtual objects.

As these technologies develop, there is a need for quantitative understanding
of the biomechanics of surgery ---  knowledge essential to proper simulation
and robotic enhancement  of surgery.