Some surgeries were performed in Spain with real-time assistance from Japan thanks to the low latency of 5G.

This is still far from the remote surgery that has for so long been used as an illustration of the utopian potential of 5G, but is nonetheless a dramatic illustration of the kind of things it could unlock. A surgeon performed some operations in Malaga and had real-time assistance from another doctor who was dialling in from Tokyo. That assistance would have been far less useful if there had been a lag on the line.

The demo was part of the Advanced Digestive Endoscopy Conference and featured some degree of augmented reality. It claims also to be the first in medical congress in which the training sessions have been broadcast live with almost no latency, thus enabling attendees to interact thanks to 5G and AR.

“The operations organised at this conference are just an example of the numerous practical applications that 5G can have in healthcare,” said Mercedes Fernández, Innovation Manager at Telefónica. “Thanks to two key features of this technology – the low latency that allows transmission without delays and the ability to handle large video streams at high speed – it was possible to perform this intervention with the added value of doing so live and in real time with the interaction of doctors and attendees to provide solutions and ask questions about the clinical case that was undertaken.”

“The experience of previous years in organising innovative training courses in digestive endoscopy allows us this year to provide a global training course thanks to 5G technology, something that might seem science fiction but that we are making reality today” said Dr Pedro Rosón the surgeon who performed the operations.

“The use of 5G and augmented reality is, without doubt, what stands out in comparison with our previous editions and with any other standard medical workshops. We are therefore proud to keep and to continue offering an innovative training space with the live conducting of cases by specialists from Spain and abroad, with an emphasis on theory and reviewing the latest advances in interventional endoscopy.”

Remote assistance via 5G that makes use of AR may well be one of the primary use-cases used to sell 5G to industry. The potential it offers for providing training in the field is clear and it could transform the way training and mentoring is conducted. These are still early days, but each demo such as this one likely makes mainstream acceptance of this kind of technology more likely.