Neurosurgeon Rory Murphy, MD, has physician safety at the forefront of his mind in his recent medtech partnership.
Dr. Murphy, of Phoenix-based Barrow Neurological Institute, has collaborated with Fortega Medicine to bring Texray’s products to the U.S. Texray’s products, which have been used across European markets, include werable head and neck protection for surgeons. He spoke with Becker’s about his work with them and the potential of AI in spine care.
Note: This conversation was edited for clarity.
Question: Tell me about your work with Fortega Medicine and Texray. How did this collaboration come about?
Dr. Rory Murphy: I’m a busy neurosurgeon, and I normally do everything I can to reduce the amount of radiation I’m exposed to. I use the minimal amount of shots. I make sure the team is behind the screen, but there were some cases I was doing particularly where for various reasons, it was harder to get away from the radiation force. I was getting more and more concerned about the radiation exposure that my head and neck was potentially getting exposed to, and I had never seen any good solution to it. Obviously, there were lead glasses which I wore, but there was nothing to protect my head and neck properly.
I was in Sweden for a medtech conference when I learned about Texray Textile Technology and spoke to TexRay’s CEO Petra Apell about making a head and neck radiation protection system that’s breathable and easy to wear.
I then talked to my friend JP Hartigan, an expert on injury reduction, to see if we could get this to help healthcare workers in the U.S. We managed to figure out how to bring it to pain management physicians and neurosurgeons. I’ve worn it for almost a year.
Just over the past six months, we talked to physicians, and a lot of them started to use it. We have quite a few pain management physicians use it because they get exposed to a lot of fluoro when they’re doing their epidural injections or when they’re implanting pulse generators or spinal cord stimulators.
Q: What’s your outlook for this radiation protection technology? How soon do you think will be more widespread in healthcare?
RM: We’ve just got it available in the U.S. I don’t think people are truly aware of the potential dangers of the radiation we’re exposed to. There’s a JAMA article that came out recently showing that surgeons have an almost 60% higher rate of mortality than nonsurgical physicians. And they believe it’s probably from occupational exposure in the operating room. They can’t pin it down exactly, but they think it could be the radiation and the smoke.
Q: AI is one of the biggest emerging areas in healthcare. How do you see the role of it evolving in spine and brain care?
RM: I think that’s going to be absolutely critical. We can use it to monitor a person, watch their movement, and collate their symptoms as they go through their conservative treatment. It can help us decide the right time to do surgery and analyze the imaging and guide us on which is the best option for that patient. Then it can combine that with smart implants that can give objective data as a patient recovers and put all that information together so we have thousands of patients who promote her over time and give people real, accurate information on the best option.
Q: How much are you using AI in your day-to-day work?
RM: I use it mainly for clinical work such as notes and scheduling. Right now, we’re using this somewhat, but not as much as I think we will be doing in the coming years.
