Boosted by virtual reality and AI, telesurgery is on the rise

Dr. Sam Browd is a Seattle neurosurgeon who is taking telemedicine and virtual reality technology to a different, unexpected place – the operating room. Browd is professor of neurological surgery at the University of Washington, an attending neurosurgeon at Seattle Children's Hospital, and cofounder and chief medical officer at health IT vendor Proprio. He has spent the last few years working with engineers and other surgeons to bring the operating room out of the analog world and into the digital. What they've created is a new technology that provides surgeons a 360-view of surgery by combining virtual reality and artificial intelligence, enabling surgeons to integrate information in new ways. Out of this, too, comes work on telesurgery – the ability to do live surgery in different locations or mentorship and proctorship.