Surgeons say Apple Vision Pro saves them pain and injury

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in Apple Vision Pro
Apple Vision Pro is being praised by surgeons for its high resolution images and its ergonomics, which may even save them injuries that now lead to early retirement.

Two surgeons wearing blue scrubs and augmented reality headsets work in an operating room filled with medical equipment.
Surgery underway using Apple Vision Pro (Source: UC San Diego Health)

Since its launch in
February 2024, the Apple Vision Pro has already been used by surgeons in the US, and across the globe. Now the first surgeon to ever perform a robotically assisted gastric-bypass operation, is now a proponent of the Apple Vision Pro both for patients and surgeons.

Santiago Horgan heads the Center for the Future of Surgery at UC San Diego, and told Time magazine that the Apple Vision Pro is more significant than the robot tool he used in 2000. "This is the same level of revolution, but will impact more lives because of the access to it," he says.

Horgan has previously tried Microsoft's HoloLens and Google Glass, but says their image resolution was not high enough. Apple Vision Pro is and in September 2023, with a pre-release test headset, he and colleagues performed a paraesophageal hernia operation wearing it.

"We are all blown away: it was better than we even expected," says Horgan. "I'm usually turning around and stopping the operation to see a CT scan; looking to see what happened with the endoscopy [another small camera that provides a closer look at organs]; looking at the monitor for the heart rate."

Instead, with Apple Vision Pro, Horgan can concentrate on the operation uninterrupted. That's better for the patient because they are on the operating table for less time, but it also has benefits for the surgeon.

Reportedly, 20% of surgeons polled in a 2022 study said that they would consider early retirement because of the discomfort of operations. Having to operate on a patient while looking up at a screen and taking in information from around the operating room even causes surgeons pain.

If it continues keeping experienced surgeons working, the price of the headset is more than worth it. But Christopher Longhurst, Horgan's colleague and chief clinical and innovation officer at UC San Diego Health, says price isn't the issue it would be for consumers.

"The monitors in the operating room are probably $20,000 to $30,000," he said. "So $3,500 for a headset is like budget dust in the healthcare setting."

The future of Apple Vision Pro in surgery



Longhurst is also working with the Apple Vision Pro on 3D radiology imaging. For this and different medical applications, Longhurst says his team believes that the Apple Vision Pro "is going to be the standard of care in the next years to come, in operating rooms all over the world."

Miguel Burch, head of the general surgery division at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, says that part of this is down to how Apple Vision Pro is a single device instead of a series of them.

"If everything we wanted to use in augmented reality is proprietarily attached to a different device, then we have 10 headsets and 15 different monitors," says Burch. "But with [Apple Vision Pro], you can use it with anything that has a video feed."

Burch also says he personally has sustained three unspecified injuries from performing minimally-invasive surgeries before the existence of the Apple Vision Pro. He calls the headset "ergonomically a solution to the silent problem of surgeons having to end their careers earlier."

Separately, a UK surgical assistant switched from HoloLens 2 to the Apple Vision Pro in March 2024, and described it as a "gamechanger."



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jahblade

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    All I got from this is, how does a monitor cost $30,000? Especially when all the monitors I see in hospitals display simple graphs and numbers.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 19
    hogman said:
    All I got from this is, how does a monitor cost $30,000? Especially when all the monitors I see in hospitals display simple graphs and numbers.

    monitor (noun)

    1. an instrument or device used for observing, checking, or keeping a continuous record of a process or quantity. (eg, heart monitor)
    2. an electronic device with a screen used for display (as of television pictures or computer information)

    Their usage is the first definition, not the second.
    edited October 16 StrangeDaysappleinsideruserBart Ywatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 19
    jimh2jimh2 Posts: 665member
    I seriously doubt the $30,000 surgical monitors are as good as the Apple Pro Displays as 1/6th the cost. I have worked for some medical/dental practices for the last dozen or so years and they all are fleeced regularly for any number of reasons. The first being they are an easy mark. The next is consolidation has limited the number of vendors though even when there were more the prices were +/- a few percent. New entrants with hardware an essentially crippled because they do not have API access to the software to integrate with the patient management tools. All of the third party instruments have to do extra steps to work. In the case of in mouth dental x-ray devices the choices are $7500 and $10,000 made by the same company that sells the patient management software. The latter integrates perfectly, but the former requires additional steps. One office tried one and stuck it out until it failed but never again. From that point forward it was products made by the same company. 

    There are other things like "certified" computers to use with the patient management software. They typically cost about double and are the same Dell's anyone can buy with a massive amount of markup. Doctors/Dentists no nothing about IT other than it has to work and the vendor scare tactics work well.
    williamlondondanoxjahbladeAlex_Vwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 19
    hogman said:
    All I got from this is, how does a monitor cost $30,000? Especially when all the monitors I see in hospitals display simple graphs and numbers.
    For the same reason they charge you $1,000 for a Tylenol, I guess.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 19
    yes, after the surgery they see their favorite movies  :D
    edited October 16
  • Reply 6 of 19
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,580member
    Very interesting and encouraging! 
    jahbladedavenjas99watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,486moderator
    hogman said:
    All I got from this is, how does a monitor cost $30,000? Especially when all the monitors I see in hospitals display simple graphs and numbers.
    It's similar to reference monitors for movies. Apple compared their XDR displays to $20000+ reference displays from Sony. They tend to have better calibration and features for their use cases.

    https://www.monitors.com/collections/surgical-displays
    https://www.monitors.com/collections/surgical-displays/products/barco-mdsc-8358-k9307938

    https://synergymedco.com/product/sony-lmd-xh550mt-55in-4k-3d-2d-lcd-medical-monitor/ (medical features listed)
    https://www.medicalecart.com/products/sony-lmd-xh550mt-55-inch-4k-3d-2d-lcd-monitor-high-performance-medical-monitor-box-of-01.html

    Low glare, picture-in-picture, 3D image input, color accurate, designed for easy cleaning for hygiene etc.
    jahbladeAlex_Vwatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 19
    lotoneslotones Posts: 107member
    miiwtwo said:
    yes, after the surgery they see their favorite movies  :D
    You hope it's "after" and not "during"... would hate my surgeon to be laughing it up to Ted Lasso during my procedure... and for God's sake, please turn on "Do Not Disturb"...  :s
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 19
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,415member
    There will be some smart doctors that also know how to program that will build software tools to make use of the Apple Vision or some future variants going forward in the medical fields.

    https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/exex-and-neurosurgeon-dr-robert-masson-achieve-world-first-using-apple-vision-pro-302054787.html 

    https://healthsystemcio.com/2024/09/30/apple-vision-pro-longhurst-broderick/ Rumblings in the force Apple definitely needed to release the Apple Vision to get it into the hands of as many very smart people so that they can get as much feedback to the hardware and software engineers at Apple to flesh out Vision OS and build new API’s needed by the developers.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/these-are-the-vision-pro-apps-apple-says-will-transform-healthcare/

    Obviously none of this is instantaneous, the Apple Vision ramp up will be the same as the Apple Watch small iterative steps that build up into big things over time, the software/hardware race is at the beginning of the cycle.

    Buy more shares or continue to hold? Hmm….
    edited October 16 Alex_Vwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,486moderator
    danox said:
    Obviously none of this is instantaneous, the Apple Vision ramp up will be the same as the Apple Watch small iterative steps that build up into big things over time, the software/hardware race is at the beginning of the cycle.

    Buy more shares or continue to hold? Hmm….
    The impact on share price will depend on how much it can drive revenue. The Watch was reported to ship over 50m units per year. ASP is probably $300-400. $300 x 50m = $15b and makes up a significant part of the wearables revenue as well as being a huge install base for 3rd party software support.

    https://watchfaces.co/apple-watch-dominates-the-market-with-50-million-units-sold-in-2022/

    If they can get AVP to a mass-market price point, they can reach this revenue and enough units to be a platform for 3rd parties to generate revenue on.

    $1500 x 10m units = $15b. They sell this many Macbooks around this ASP. It's not going to move the overall revenue much from ~$390b (4% growth) but the more platforms the better.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 19
    oddly, I don't see the usual people saying Apple needs to give up on such a useless product as AVP.
    davenBart Ywatto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 19
    hogman said:
    All I got from this is, how does a monitor cost $30,000? Especially when all the monitors I see in hospitals display simple graphs and numbers.
    DICOM certified monitors are very high resolution and calibrated for the specific room they are being used in. They are very expensive. Think - you have a home theater and get a ISF certified tech to calibrate it for you and your room. It's like that only on steroids.

    DICOM is generally used for high resolution radiologic images. From X-Rays, to PET, to CT, MRI, 3D Mammography, etc. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 19
    Alex_VAlex_V Posts: 268member
    Side note: I’m astonished to read about the ergonomic problems that surgeons (in the US, and everywhere else I presume) experience on the job. 

    Back to the Apple Vision Pro: I suspect that, as it is still early days, the various devices are poorly integrated with AVP. X-rays and CT scans images are not being ported to the AVP, instead the surgeon is looking directly at those monitors through the monitors of the AVP, with all the associated colour fidelity and resolution loss, and moiré. Once these medical devices are ported to the AVP, the surgeon will be able to pause, rest their neck, looking in any direction, while zooming into and examining a glorious image of the CT scan image using simple hand gestures, etc.. Glorious!
    Oferwatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 19
    What a sensationalist pile of bull crap. This is like when Apple introduced the first 5G iPhone and said that medical professionals could perform surgery from across the country which has never once happened. Hospitals buy all sorts of junk because they have special interest groups to test new technologies. To think that a single product is going to inspire a wave of late retirement is laughable. 
  • Reply 15 of 19
    Alex_VAlex_V Posts: 268member
    Hazen said:
    What a sensationalist pile of bull crap. This is like when Apple introduced the first 5G iPhone and said that medical professionals could perform surgery from across the country which has never once happened. Hospitals buy all sorts of junk because they have special interest groups to test new technologies. To think that a single product is going to inspire a wave of late retirement is laughable. 
    Huh‽ 
    jas99Bart Ywatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 19
    charlesncharlesn Posts: 1,168member
    Marvin said:
    If they can get AVP to a mass-market price point, they can reach this revenue and enough units to be a platform for 3rd parties to generate revenue on.

    Meta Quest is at a mass market price point, has been for years, and Meta continues to lose $1 billion per month on this division, nothing but tens of billions in losses over time with no end in sight. So getting to a mass market price point is no holy grail. 

    It seems pretty clear that AVP 1.0, from a strategic POV for Apple, is about developing use cases for its unique set of capabilities. The first goal, however, was producing a v1.0 device that provided a solid showcase for those capabilities, which AVP 1.0 impressively accomplished, especially considering its complexity and all-new OS. No company, and certainly not Apple, would embark on a new product like this without the patience and cash reserves to give it the time it needs in the marketplace. Are you aware of how much cash Apple is sitting on? Apple is no stranger to having its new products derided: iPod? So what! Apple is way too late to the MP3 player market. iPhone? Hah! Blackberry is king! It will never succeed without a physical keyboard! Macbook Air? What a joke! Too slow, no battery life, just a rich person's toy. iPad? You've gotta be kidding! It's nothing but a big iPhone! Apple Watch? Ridiculous! It can't do anything unless it's tethered to a nearby iPhone! Through it all, Apple ignores the usual haters and just keep cranking out hit products. 


    jas99Alex_V9secondkox2Bart Ywatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 19
    charlesncharlesn Posts: 1,168member

    Hazen said:
    What a sensationalist pile of bull crap.
    YES, SURGEONS AT UC SAN DIEGO AND THE HEAD OF GENERAL SURGERY AT CEDARS-SINAI ARE WELL KNOWN FOR SPOUTING SENSATIONALIST PILES OF BULL CRAP TO THE PRESS. HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. 

    This is like when Apple introduced the first 5G iPhone and said that medical professionals could perform surgery from across the country which has never once happened.
    LINK PLEASE TO APPLE SAYING THIS. I'LL WAIT....

    Hospitals buy all sorts of junk because they have special interest groups to test new technologies.
    NO SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP INVOLVED. YOU HAVE THE CENTER FOR FUTURE SURGERY AT UC SD WHICH, YOU KNOW, IS ALL ABOUT RESEARCHING THE EQUIPMENT THAT WILL ADVANCE THE STATE OF THE ART IN SURGERY. AND YOU HAVE THE HEAD OF GENERAL SURGERY AT CEDARS-SINAI... YOU KNOW, JUST A LOW RANKING POSITION AT SOME GLORIFIED URGENT CARE FACILITY. 

    To think that a single product is going to inspire a wave of late retirement is laughable.
    WHAT'S LAUGHABLE IS THAT YOU MADE THIS UP. THE ARTICLE DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING LIKE THIS AT ALL. THE ARTICLE FIRST ESTABLISHES THAT SOME EXPERIENCED SURGEONS CONSIDER EARLY RETIREMENT BECAUSE OF THE DISCOMFORT AND PAIN IN PERFORMING OPERATIONS FOR THE REASONS LISTED. THEN IT SPECIFIES HOW AVP SOLVES THE ISSUES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DISCOMFORT AND PAIN. AND THEN IT SIMPLY SUGGESTS THE FOLLOWING: "IF IT CONTINUES TO KEEP EXPERIENCED SURGEONS WORKING, THE PRICE OF THE HEADSET IS MORE THAN WORTH IT." 

    Alex_V9secondkox2Bart Ywatto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 19
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,415member
    oddly, I don't see the usual people saying Apple needs to give up on such a useless product as AVP.
    Those same people also said Apple should stay married to Intel forever, and these days, they also say Apple should never make a server or do any long-term projects everything has to be instantaneous like winning the lottery.
    edited October 17 Alex_V9secondkox2Bart Ywatto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 19
    Apple Vision Pro is being praised by surgeons for its high resolution images and its ergonomics, which may even save them injuries that now lead to early retirement.

    Big difference from the article title.

    The real gist is the some surgeons have hypothesized that Apple's headset may possibly be helpful in these ways in the future - though also possibly requiring more chiropractor and opthalmologst visits. 

    The AVP might proide prettier pictures, but the end result is no different than already established headsets. A doctor performing complex surgery with both hands and multiple instruments certainly doesn't need to be sweating over their face or tethered to a battery via a long cord.

    Unfortunately, there are always neat ideas with old tech (the AVP isn't new tech. It's just another headset, but with better specs).

    Articles like this are always fun, but end up being meaningless. Let;s not forget the unbeleivable amount of money Facebook invested in becoming Meta based entirely around this concept, paying people to come up with reasons for it to exists and its own exployess couldn't even be bothered to use it. the concept itself is just not what it was hoped to be.


    It's.


    Not.


    There.


    At least not Yet.


    Once it's a pair of self-contained glasses, sunglasses, it will be mass market capable and also more useful in hypothetical situations like this. Everybody either wears glases or sunglasses so it makes sense to have the tech built in to something people use anyway. Not everyone wants to play star trek all the time - at least not in public. 

    edited October 18
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