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Surgicon

Also known as Smart Bandage, HealStrip, Corrector and Active-Dressing

Smart Bandage
Image from Arik
The Surgicon bonds with traumatised tissue and extends healing fibres into the affected area

Tumbling through the air Freya had just enough time to contemplate the wisdom of going off-piste without implanting a route guide before she hit the ground with a sickening crunch. The drifts were thankfully soft enough that she didn't lose her body but it didn't take the red damage reports flashing in her retinas to tell her how badly her arm had broken. Sitting up she glanced at the extreme angle her lower left arm now sported, like a second elbow had formed halfway to the wrist. Her implants had dulled any pain but reading their prognosis Freya saw it would take several days for the medicytes in her blood to repair the damage.

With a humble sigh she reached into her pack and took out a large disk; as wide as her outstretched palm and as thick as her thumb. The fabric of her sleeve carefully retracted, revealing the red tinged flesh beneath (bruised but not bleeding). Placing the surgicon over her arm she watched as it handshaked with her medisystem. Within moments it was flowing like melted wax until it enveloped her arm from wrist to elbow (the real one). With sudden, graceful movements it flexed through a series of motions and snapped her arm back into the right configuration. Through her medisystem she sensed hundreds of hair-thin fibres penetrate her skin. Skirting vasculature they sought out bone fragments to digest, fractures to re-bond and released a slew of biological factors to herd her wounded tissues back to proper function.

The prognosis displayed in her right eye re-evaluated; 60% functionality to be returned in one hour, 90% two hours after that. At which point the surgicon would detach ready for recycling whilst her medisystem smoothed over the final adjustments. As she stood her sleeve fabric rolled back over her arm (bulging to accommodate the smart cast). With a thought to her implants her boot skis redeployed. With somewhat more caution she continued down the mountain.

Yabroo Winter Sports Moon safety memory thirty-four: Why not to forget First-Aid
Circa 9984at


An ancient and highly versatile medical/augmentation technology, also known as a HealStrip, Corrector and Active-Dressing. Specific configurations vary across time, cultures and clades but the fundamental design of surgicons has remained largely the same. In appearance a surgicon is a firm but flexible patch, typically a few centimetres thick with different major dimensions based on need (a typical human baseline surgicon measures ten centimetres on a side, two centimetres thick). One surface acts as an interface with a screen that can be used to read data and input commands; wireless transceivers are also common for DNI control. The opposing side is highly textured, consisting of many fractal folds akin to a mammalian brain or B. oleracea. The interior of a surgicon is similar to that of an omnitool; it features a dense three-dimensional weave of smart matter fibrils (ranging in diameter from nano- to millimetres) within which is packed a plethora of medical equipment, mattercache stores, fab-nodes and computronium.

This range of material alongside medical protocols refined over millennia allows surgicons to treat a wide array of conditions, though specialist versions excel in their area over generalists. In operation a surgicon is placed over a wound or, if the damage is internal, upon the surface at the closest point. Its active side immediately adheres to the patient and the patch alters shape, flowing over the area in need of treatment. Analysis tools such as ultrasound, THz scanners, optical detectors and chemical sensors provide a diagnosis (this process can be accelerated with docbot/expert supervision). Once a treatment plan is computed the surgicon infiltrates the body with its smart fibres, taking care to cause as little tissue damage as possible and nullifying any pain with nerve-blockers. With its penetrating fibres and stores of equipment a surgicon can perform a huge range of procedures, including: knit lacerated tissue, digest necrotic flesh, lay down regenerative scaffolds, reset bone, bypass damaged areas (including whole organs) and supply the lost function itself whilst repairs take place (may require linking to support machinery), release diagnostic nanites for whole body analysis, synthesise anti-infection/cancer/senescence agents (chemical or bionanotechnological), infuse pre-programmed medicytes, install implants, re-arrange neural networks and perform cosmetic biosculpting.

For all their versatility surgicons are limited by the availability of their internal equipment, power and material stores. It is not uncommon, particularly in cases of cosmetic augmentaton, for a surgicon to require an attached feedline that can supply new material and drain waste. In emergency cases or other scenarios where speed is required more specialised tools with larger support equipment (i.e. an autodoc) outperform surgicons. Faster than purely medicyte based technology (such as medisystems, N-FAKs and omnimed) but more convenient than a full autodoc, surgicons occupy the broad middle ground of Terragen medical technology.

 
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Appears in Topics
EverydaytechHigh Tech / HitechMedical Treatment
Middle Tech / Midtech
 
Development Notes
Text by Ryan B
Initially published on 13 January 2017.

 
 
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