You are invited to the Southern Alberta Section’s 2018 Annual General Meeting. The meeting will provide an update on the activities of the Section, the Technical Chapters and the Affinity Groups over the past year, and provide an outlook for activities planned in 2019. Elections for the Southern Alberta Section’s 2019-2020 Officers (Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasurer) will also take place.

Rachael L’Orsa, PhD student in Project neuroArm’s Surgical Performance Laboratory at the University of Calgary, will deliver the keynote speech, “Are surgical robots the future of health care?”

Keynote speech: Are surgical robots the future of health care?
Surgical paradigms are slowly shifting towards minimally invasive procedures, which provide access to the body via slender tools rather than through holes large enough to admit human hands. Robots are emerging as a necessary medium to restore dexterity and crucial haptic sensations lost with non-motorized systems during laparoscopy, but they have yet to receive widespread adoption. While variations of these systems have been in use since the 1980s, the state of the art differs substantially from public expectations. There are a wide range of technical challenges to solve before robots can do more than just lend surgeons a super-human capacity for precision and accuracy; thus many exciting research and development opportunities still exist for engineers in this area.