The last words that were supposedly spoken by one of the fathers of Romanticism, the German Goethe, could be used to describe one of the studies that I participated in as a researcher at the Biomedical Engineering Research Centre, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (CREB, CIT UPC).
Logically, lighting an operating theatre is no easy business. However, surgeons demand improvements not only in the instruments and techniques they use, but also in the spaces in which they work.
Alicia Casals, CREB UPC
In response to this need, Doctor Enric Laporte, a notable surgeon with an outstanding career spanning over twenty years in various hospitals in Catalonia, approached CREB researchers to propose a challenge: would we be able to create a system that could improve the current lighting of surgeries?
The aim was to work on a new, more efficient system based on certain requirements set out by the surgeon. Various kinds of lights were needed that could be focused on different points at different times and adapted to needs on the operating table so that the area of interest could be illuminated with the required light intensity. In addition, the system needed to be easy to use…