In searching for my woman to honor for Ada Lovelace Day, I started with TED – a place I often go for inspiration. I clicked on “Show Talks Related to Technology” on the left navigation. I was a little bummed when only one (albeit awesome) woman showed up on the auto generated spotlight links. Undeterred, I searched for technology in the main TED site search. About 3 pages in on the search I ran across a talk with the following title “Catherine Mohr: Surgery’s past, present and robotic future” Having just gone through surgery last week, this title certainly piqued my interest.
Before watching her talk, I googled Dr. Mohr and found a recent article about her in the IEEE Spectrum Journal. The minute I read the “What She Does” synopsis, I knew I had my woman for Ada Lovelace Day. Dr. Catherine Mohr develops advanced tools and procedures for da Vinci surgical robots, helping to make surgery safer and less invasive. The da Vinci system was used to perform my surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. It is the first (and last) thing I remember seeing when I was wheeled into the operating room before the anesthesia (or “margarita” as the anesthetist called it) kicked in.
Take a minute (well, 18 minutes and 55 seconds) to watch Dr. Mohr’s TED Talk. If you’re super duper crunched for time, fast forward to the 17:00 mark, but, I hope you’re not crunched for time, it really is worth the watch over your morning coffee or lunch break.
Dr. Mohr, thank you for making me (and countless others) whole, intact, and functional enough to go out and save the world.
LVD….
Awesome stuff. wow. I’ve heard about the DaVinci system, but it was really incredible to see it in action and see how revoluntionary it is.
Thank you for sharing Dr. Mohr and her accomplishment and vision.