Google Glass used in foot surgery in Jaipur

Even as wearable computers and electronics turned out to be the biggest crowd pullers in this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas, another event closer home underlined the potential of the devices as also how useful they would be.

A team of doctors led by US-based orthopaedic surgeon Selen G Parekh performed a foot surgery in Jaipur recently using Google Glass.  The surgery was broadcast live on the internet to share the information with other doctors, recently.

According to a report by DNA India, the surgery took place at an Indo-US conference in Jaipur headed by Dr Ashish Sharma.

The report quoted Dr Sharma saying the device could, in the coming years, be used to communicate with the family of a patient, teach students remotely and communicate with other doctors during a surgery.

The Google Glass Project, is essentially about a wearable device, to be more accurate, eyeglasses that provide augmented reality features, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities (capable of working with Android and iOS devices), cameras, voice-activation commands, and a heads-up display.

Describing the benefits, Sharma said the image which the doctor saw through Google Glass would be broadcast on the internet.

He said, earlier, during surgeries, to show something to another doctor, one had to keep moving and the cameraman to move as well to take different angles.

He said in the process, there were chances of infection, but with the new technology, the image seen by the doctor using Google glass would be seen by everyone throughout the world.

The benefits would extend to rural areas too as a doctor in a remote location would examine a patient.

Google shipped 8000 of the devices for testing under their ongoing, 'Explorer Program' wherein they sent out the glasses specifically to testers across the globe.

This is not the first instance of the device being used by surgeons. Ohio State broadcast an ACL surgery last August, while another Indian doctor performed an upper gastro-intestinal laparoscopy procedure in September.

Meanwhile, a number of medical technology firms keen to explore and exploit the potential of the technology have launched startups.