Remote surgery: Exploring emergency care at a distance

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 62, No. 5, June 2020, Page 179 News

Could remote robotic surgery play a role in improving health outcomes for residents in remote and northern communities? The Conference Board of Canada explores the use of this technology in a newly released report, “Cool Ideas: Remote Surgery.” This paper aims to spark a conversation on whether remote robotic surgery could reduce costs, expand access, and improve surgical services in the North, in the near term or distance future.

Looking to remote robotic surgery to help residents in Canada’s North and other remote regions access important surgical needs requires addressing many issues, including technological, cultural, logistical, and social concerns. But first, northerners need to determine if remote surgery is something they want to consider.

“Cool Ideas: Remote Surgery” is the second report in the Cool Ideas series. This series aims to raise awareness about emerging opportunities while weighing the costs and benefits of new systems against the risks and challenges. The first report of the series was titled “Revolutionary Building for the North: 3D Printing Construction.” Both reports are available from www.conferenceboard.ca/e-library.

. Remote surgery: Exploring emergency care at a distance. BCMJ, Vol. 62, No. 5, June, 2020, Page(s) 179 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

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For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

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