With brain trauma, surgeons don’t always know if an operation will help. Could AI change that?
A paramedic gurney flies through the trauma bay carrying an unconscious elderly gentleman. He is already intubated and has a hive of doctors and nurses running alongside, placing intravenous lines and injecting medicine into his blood stream. He’s suffered a serious head injury in a car accident. With every passing minute, blood accumulates in the space above his brain, pressing on vital structures.
It was a cold winter afternoon in 2017, and the patient had been taken to a major regional hospital. When he arrived, the neurosurgeon on call had minutes to counsel the family on the man’s prognosis, and together they needed to decide whether to operate; surgery could save the patient’s life, but it could also commit him to a life dependent on a ventilator and a feeding tube, trapped in a coma or with limited brain function. Sometimes the quality of life matters more
