After we know the theory of the motors inside the drill and also understand how

the input energy producing the output power, modifications and improvements will
be part of our interest as well. In this part, we will separate into 2 sections where the
1
st
section will be the improvements and modifications had done onto the surgical
drill. The 2
nd
section will be about the future improvements and modifications that
can be done on the surgical drill.
By looking back the history or timeline of surgery drilling, although there is no
strong evidence, but seems like the first drilling surgery is known as trepanning.
Trepanning also known as trephination and trephining, in other words, making a burr
hole. This hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull. As dura mater is being
exposed, treatment of disease related to intracranial disease can be proceeding. The
oldest evidence will be the 120 prehistoric skulls found at burial site in France date to
6500 BC. By looking at this evidence, we can say that driller is exists since or before
6500 BC.
As time passes, surgical drill encounters a big change where modifications and
improvement is being made on it to fulfill the need of the surgeon. There are some
drastic changes in surgical drill. The first one will be drill had evolutes from
mechanical power to current energy powered and further to battery powered in this
21
st
era. Without any doubt, the surgical drill had become cordless and its battery is
rechargeable. Not only that, the surgical drill also can be powered by battery and
also alternating current from the plug to prevent the condition where the battery is
run off. For commercialize purposes, extra battery pack is also available for
emergency used. Besides that, as time passes, various types of drill bits are invented
for different use. As for convenient, innovator invented surgical power tool where
drill bits can be change and make it a multi functional surgical tools. Nowadays, there
are also disposable drill bits (one time use) beside than the reusable drill bits to ease
the problems of sterilization. The dimension and weight of the surgical driller is
change from heavy, big and bulky to lightweight, small and easy handling. This not
only eases the storage purposes but also improved in handling and maneuver
characteristics. The handgrip of the driller also being improved as to prevent slip is
happening. As the surgical drill is being used in different part of the body, different
speed is required and thus the surgical drill had an option where the speed is
adjustable to certain revolution per minute (rpm) based on the torque power needed.
There are some drawbacks occurred in this surgical drill, but they are accompanied
by solutions. The first draw back will be the long vibration will caused fretting
corrosion. As to prevent it, connection between the battery pact and the electronic
circuit is needed. Thermal injury or thermal necrosis to the bone surrounding is
another drawback of the surgical drill. This can be solved by improving the drill bits
design. Last but not least, a significant improvement will be the present of safety lock
on the drill bits to prevent it from misplaced and dropped out during the drilling
process.
Above is the advancement of the surgical drill from long time ago until today. But
this doesnt mean the stop of the improvements and modifications. There are some
modifications we can do on current surgical drills. As for the battery powered surgical
drill, there will be a phenomena where the battery pack tends to slip out as during
drilling process due to the vibrations and gravitational effect. This can be improved
by modified the design such as adding a locking switch between the battery pack and
the surgical driller. Although lightweight surgical drill is what we needed, but
different people especially surgeon will have different requirement in weight of the
driller. Heavy driller might be more suitable for certain surgeon in handling a surgical
driller. Therefore, we can actually adopted the special features of gaming mouse
where the weight of the mouse can be adjust by adding or removing weights in the
custom weight system. Apart from that, we also can replace the drill alignment
devices by having laser pointer on the surgical drill. This can ease the procedure of
surgery as well as increase the accuracy and precision of the drilling point. Just like
other machines, surgical driller also face problem of overheating. We can maintain
the temperature of the surgical driller at the normal optimum functional range of
temperature by having heat remover or just by improve the design. Besides, we also
can improve the surgical driller by having alarm system. This alarm system will warn
the surgeon if the drill bits is not inserted correctly or wrong speed and power is
chosen for that particular types of drill bits. Wrong speed of the surgical driller used
on patients might cause extra unwanted avoidable damage to the patients.
Advancement and improvements of surgical driller will be needed for future and
it is important for us to have more features on the surgical drill which helps us in
medical field.