A new partnership is set to revolutionize the world of medicine as Google and J&J will create surgical robots.
- Verb Surgical will produce medical equipment
- Surgical robots will not replace doctors, but assist them
- The company’s headquarters will be located on Mountain View
For those of you who didn’t know, Google has a company for Life Sciences which was recently renamed ‘Verily’. Verily is going to partner up with Johnson & Johnson to create a new company called Verb Surgical. This company will start developing robots meant for medicine, especially surgery.
Although it might sound scary, surgeons shouldn’t worry, as the robots will be created to help rather than replace. Although technology is very advanced and a machine could perform quite well, it is still thought that a surgeon’s hand or brain cannot be replaced by a robot.
However, machines could be very helpful in assisting surgeons when operating, so rather than robot-doctors, we will have robot-assistants. For now, they are planned to assist only in easier and minimally invasive surgeries, so the risks are very low.
What the company hopes for is that the robots, given their accuracy will help reduce physical trauma and will be able to have a better control during operation. They already made progress on a platform that will support surgical instruments, which means the production will probably start soon.
The newly created company, Verb Surgical, will have its headquarters on Mountain View, California, just as all other Google projects such as self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.
In order to succeed in this business, the company will be needing support from pharmaceutical, biotechnological and diagnostic companies to manage to enter the market.
With financial and intellectual property investments from all of these companies – Google, Verily, Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon, Verb surgical should have no problem in putting their plans in action.
Despite their continuous assurance that the robotics technology they are developing will not put in danger any surgeon’s career, medical staff should still remain alert. A machine assisting in surgery with a much greater accuracy than a human could easily become a replacement for an expendable, let’s say…nurse. Therefore, this is a good reason and a great opportunity for medical staff to take things up a notch and do their best for their patients in order to become better and not risk to be replaced by a machine.
Image source: www.bing.com
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