The Patient Comes First: The Perfect Surrogate

Abstract

The information age has been a marvel to behold. Mind boggling advances in almost every sphere of science and technology have been forthcoming - discoveries, creations, processes, devices, instruments, systems that are smaller, bigger, faster, and better. This accelerated progress has also been manifest in medicine where significant advances in the ability to more effectively diagnose, treat and cure have gone forward at a remarkable pace. This also holds true for most subdisciplines within medicine, including the focus of this workshop on augmented environments and computer aided interventions (AE-CAI). These are beginning to have measurable impact on the health and well-being of the population. Initial technologies have exhibited high performance and realistic simulation for efficient training, rehearsal and on-line guidance of medical interventional procedures. But this success still lags far behind the ultimate potential, and even farther from the horizon of expectations and vision for the field.