Original story

Elisa Method’s address at the MedicAwards, Copenhagen, 19.5.2008

Surgical sewing machine - long-awaited OT advance sets doctors smiling

Recording: EU Commissioner for Health Elisa Method, M.D.

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished colleagues!*

Medicine, the biosciences and biotechnology are developing today at a simply astonishing pace, and we sometimes have difficulty keeping abreast of the advances even in our own specialized fields!*

The interest of the media tends nevertheless to focus on apparently dramatic areas, such as those offered by gene technology or our efforts to conquer new virus-based illnesses, such as AIDS or this latest Volta virus, a derivative of the dreaded Ebola of the 1990s. It is perhaps unfortunate that such slanted coverage often obscures the staggering developments that have occurred on less “media-friendly” fronts, for example in the field of surgical instruments.*

We are gathered here today to reward two pathfinding figures who have realized a long-held dream of mine. Before I entered the political arena, when I was still a practising paediatric surgeon, one of my greatest dreams was a sewing machine (laughter), the kind of sewing machine that could be relied upon to make stitches quickly and well, and which could work in the sorts of places that the fingers find it hard to reach. I am naturally referring to a surgical sewing machine. *

Now my dream has become a reality, although I very much doubt whether I shall ever have the chance to make use of it. But for many of you, it will open up quite new horizons in your surgical work.*

I should like to call to the podium Dr. Aslak Ranki, Chief Physician of the Adenauer Surgical Wing of the Hannelore Hospital in Bonn, and Professor Thomas Freiholz, head of the Micromechanics Department of Cologne University of Technology, who have jointly developed this equipment (loud, prolonged applause).*

I have myself had the good fortune to be able to observe a number of operations where the sewing machine has been used. Even if it does not - Gentlemen, it DOESN’T, does it? - do embroidery work or zig-zag sutures (laughter), it nevertheless delivers results that please the surgeon’s discriminating eye. The programmes contained in the unit allow for stitches and sutures to be safely carried out in extremely difficult places - even places where such stitching has hitherto been dangerous or impossible. It is also capable of ultrasound measurements of the thickness of any given piece of tissue, and of recognizing the state and quality of the tissue. *

The latest adaptation of the device, a computer-driven micro-sewing machine with the ability to map and recognize the tissue terrain on which it is operating, is also a much better and faster method than the earlier screen-operated microsurgical techniques - and above all it is a great deal more accurate and sensitive, allowing sutures in locations with a thickness of only some four-hundredths of a millimetre. Particularly encouraging results have already been gained in the sewing of damaged nerves and thin blood vessels. *

To take but one example, in the sewing of the main nerve bundle of a severed arm, the surgeon may be called upon to join as many as 800 nerve ends. In earlier days, this sort of operation could take up to eight hours or longer, but with the new sewing machine it can be accomplished in as little as two, and with only one-tenth of the number of unsatisfactory neural connections. Equally, it has previously been quite impossible to sew for instance ruptured small blood vessels in the brain, but now this can become almost a routine exercise. *

Before I hand over this year’s award, I should like to remind you of the impact of such advances outside the operating theatre as well as in the work of the surgeons using the sewing machine. This device has materially shortened surgical waiting-lists and has reduced the number of days required for post-operative recuperation (and therefore released many much-needed hospital beds) to almost the same extent as in the first years of keyhole microsurgery. In other words, this prize does not simply acknowledge the huge assistance the equipment brings to the surgeon’s task, but more importantly the enormous savings both in costs and in human suffering that it offers society and the individual patient. *

And now it is my very great pleasure to hand over the 2008 MedicAward for Surgery, and I congratulate both of you personally and on behalf of my medical colleagues, and also on behalf of the many many patients whose lives have been lengthened and improved by your work. (Applause)*

Toteuma-arvio 2026

Toteuma lyhyesti

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  • Ilmiön ydin: kirurginen robotiikka automatisoi ompelua ja muita tarkkuutta vaativia leikkaussalin työvaiheita.

Kirurgiset ompelulaitteet ja robottiavusteinen kirurgia ovat vähentäneet käsin tehtävää työtä ja mahdollistaneet tarkan minimaalisesti invasiivisen ompelun. Täysin itsenäinen ompelukone ei kuitenkaan ole yleinen leikkaussalin toimija.

Johtopäätös: ydin kirurgisen ompelun koneellistumisesta toteutui olennaisilta osin.