This award provides partial support for publications that will result from a "Workshop on New Engineering Technology Transfer in Orthopaedics" to be held April 30, 1998 through May 3, 1998. Participants in the workshop will discuss the emerging technologies of digital image graphics, robotics, and computer informatics which have already made significant impacts on medicine and surgery in research, education and patient care. The participants include young scientists and other investigators with strong interest and expertise in related technologies and in other disciplines both from the USA and abroad.
The workshop provides a forum for the review of the relative merits and potential negative effects of the impact of these technologies. A candid review of the problems, needs and possibilities of these new tools in different sub-specialties of the field is appropriate and necessary to assess properly the potential value of this technology in orthopaedic surgery and rehabilitation medicine. For Medical Robots, Virtual Reality Models, Telemedicine/Telesurgery, Computer-Assisted Surgery and Preoperative Planning to play an important role in the future of orthopaedic medicine, their proper scope and relevant areas of application must be carefully defined and scrutinized.
Detailed plans have been prepared for the publication of workshop findings. Publications, making use of extensive color graphics, are to be a paperback book, CD-ROM, and an Internet Web site. ***
