With the advent of robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery (RALS), intra-operative stereo endoscopy is becoming a ubiquitous imaging modality in abdominal interventions. This high resolution intra-operative imaging modality enables the reconstruction of 3D soft-tissue surface geometry with the help of computer vision techniques. This reconstructed surface is a prerequisite for many clinical applica...

November-December 2003 The title of the Institute of Medicine’s report on medical error, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, is derived from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711): “To err is human; to forgive, divine” (l. 525).1 Given how familiar this proverb is in its entirety, it is striking that the IOM report itself contains no reference to forgiveness, divine or otherw...

Clearly a wakeup call for the healthcare industry, the IOM report of 2000 To Err Is Human now appears to have been a sentinel event, at least in the United States (Institute of Medicine 1999). Given that the practice of medicine in the United States is, in many ways, very similar to that in Canada--for example, our physician trainees are educated and evaluated using similar models--it is unfort...

Introduction: Substantive amount of work has been done in modeling and analyzing the scintillation camera system processes including positioning and image formation. The goal of this work is to develop a framework for analyzing performance of nonlinear positioning methods upon construction of a mathematical model of the system. In this study, the photodetector array counts are ...

BACKGROUND This study is a cost-benefit analysis of a less invasive method of intra-operative duplex imaging compared with the use of intra-operative angiogram (including C-arm fluoroscopy) in arterial reconstruction. METHODS From September 1994 to May 1995, 93 intra-operative duplex imaging studies were performed. Duplex scanning results were recorded for carotid endarterectomy (35), iliac b...