Envisioning the Operating Room of the Future

From a robot that assists in brain surgery to an instrument that can remove a brain tumor without an incision, through your nose, neurosurgery in 2022 is enabled by incredible technologies. But the future holds even more. Here, neurosurgeons Doris Wang,  MD ’11, PhD ’09 (right), and Ezequiel Goldschmidt, MD, PhD, share a vision of future operating rooms at UCSF’s planned new hospital at Parnassus Heights – with advanced MRI that will provide real-time, three-dimensional brain imaging as a surgical procedure unfolds. This will allow surgeons to perfectly target the placement of electrodes that can prevent seizures, cure movement disorders by infusing therapeutic genes exactly where they are needed, safely use lasers to stop seizures by calculating the temperature of brain tissue pixel by pixel, and perform many other procedures with ever greater precision and safety.