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you should do this," he recalls. "The image we have is as good as it
can be and seeing more won't help. In fact, if you look back over the
last 100 years, that's what people have said every 20 years or so, every
time there's a new innovation."
Same refrain
The initial reaction was the same, says Dr. Palter, in 2007 when, again
following the lead of the entertainment industry, he broached the idea
of bringing 4K video, with resolution that's about 4 times as high as
that of regular HD, into the OR. "Everyone told us 2 things: Doing 4K
through surgical endoscopes is impossible, and even if you did it, you
won't see anything of any value. It was the same thing they told us in
2001."
Undaunted, he set up a digital theater at a large medical conference
and showed 5,000 people what music videos, sports and movies
looked like in 4K. Suddenly, he says, people felt as if they were look-
ing at something live, something that was happening right in front of
them.
"The goal has always been to make visualization of the patient as
close to lifelike as possible," he points out. "Every new development
takes it to the next logical level. If a surgeon has bad vision, you
wouldn't want him to wear a pair of broken, dirty glasses. You'd want
him to have a pair that gives him perfect vision."
The 3D advantage
The same principle applies to 3D, but with a twist. Although periodic
attempts through the years to make it the next big thing in movies and
home entertainment have largely fallen flat, the advantages related to
surgery are much more apparent.
"In entertainment, people didn't necessarily care about it, so it didn't
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