IN EARLY APRIL 2020, shortly after the British prime minister Boris Johnson had announced the first pandemic lockdown in the United Kingdom, a urologist named Archie Fernando reached out to one of her colleagues, Nadine Hachach-Haram. The two doctors worked at Guy's and St Thomas' hospital, one of the busiest in the country, at a time when nearly a thousand people were dying of Covid-19 every week. Most surgeries were being deferred, except for life-or-limb cases and urgent cancer surgeries, and Hachach-Haram, who is a reconstructive plastic surgeon, recalls how useless she felt. "I would just walk into the wards and ask the nurses what I could do to help," she says. "I started doing everything, like portering and proning, turning patients over to make their breathing slightly better."

Dr. Stephen Murphy had conducted countless hip replacement operations before, but this one was different. In this one, he and his team could see a 3D hologram overlaid on the patient -- a digital model of the patient's body that existed directly in his line of vision. The surgical team had a form of X-ray vision with augmented reality. "We had done a lot of testing on real human specimens, so we knew what it was going to look like, but to see it in a live patient for the first time was just unbelievable," Murphy said in an interview with Freethink. "It feels to the surgeon as if she has been transported inside of the patient."

"Ten years of transition in a month" is a common explanation of how the pandemic is driving the use of telemedicine. Before the virus, video appointments accounted for just 1% of the 350 m consultations that the UK National Health Service manages each year. Companies like Docly, eConsult, and AccuRx are changing this. The latter states that 90% of primary care clinics in England are now using their video-calling method. Remote surgery is the most dramatic type of telemedicine.

"We've witnessed ten years of change in a month" is a typical description of how the pandemic is accelerating the use of telemedicine. Before the virus, video appointments made up only 1% of the 350m consultations which Britain's National Health Service handles each year. Companies like Docly, eConsult and AccuRx are changing that. The latter claims that 90% of primary care clinics in England are now using its video-calling system. The most dramatic form of telemedicine is remote surgery.