Metaverse was once used for weddings in India; now, it is predicted to be used to perform surgical operations in the future.
Prof. Shafi Ahmed, Chief Medical Officer of Medical Realties and consultant colorectal surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust, conveyed this.
"Surgery operations can be performed through avatars and holograms, assisted by augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)," Ahmed said in the webinar "How 5G and IoT Tech Will Transform Healthcare", Thursday (2/18/2022).
According to Ahmed, surgeons can rely on metaverse so that operations can be performed in a 3D experience that is much more realistic.
In addition, he says that with the metaverse, surgeons can collaborate remotely.
"Each surgeon can access patient records and view each other's feeds while becoming avatars in their world," Ahmed said.
Ahmed said a solid digital infrastructure is important to take advantage of the metaverse for surgical operations because the procedure requires a huge bandwidth.
"This is a technology that requires huge bandwidth, but it can actually be supported by 5G, and I see this much more realistically," said Ahmed.
Ahmed himself has led the surgical removal of tumors at The Royal London Hospital using VR technology.
This allows the entire operation to be witnessed and the audience to feel like they are in the operating theatre.
Ahmed can teach medical students worldwide about surgical procedures to remove tumors in real-time with this technology.
"This is an amazing thing in the world of medicine. There are so many technological capabilities that have great potential to be exploited," concluded Ahmed.