Robot Doctor

Science has achieved great success in the field of medicine and surgery. It has made tremendous progress in the twentieth century. In surgery also wonderful improvements have been made. Robotic surgery technic is also one of that. It is described as when a surgeon uses robotic equipment to assist during a surgical procedure. The surgeon manipulates controls which send information to the robotic equipment, telling it what to do. This surgical technology can be used for a wide range of surgical procedures. There are multiple benefits from choosing this type of surgery, but can also cost more than laparoscopic. Robotic surgery has been discussed for over two decades. Over the last decade, it has increased in popularity and applicability.

First Surgery

In 1985 a robot, the Unimation Puma 200, was used to place a needle for a brain biopsy using CT guidance. In 1992, the PROBOT, developed at Imperial College London, was used to perform prostatic surgery by Dr. Senthil Nathan at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, London. This was the first pure robotic surgery in the world. The ROBODOC from Integrated Surgical Systems (working closely with IBM) was introduced in 1992 to mill out precise fittings in the femur for hip replacement. The purpose of the ROBODOC was to replace the previous method of carving out a femur for an implant, the use of a mallet and broach/rasp. Further development of robotic systems was carried out by SRI International and Intuitive Surgical with the introduction of the da Vinci Surgical System and Computer Motion with the AESOP and the ZEUS robotic surgical system.                    

  The first robotic surgery took place at The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio under the direction of Robert E. Michler. Examples of using ZEUS include a fallopian tube reconnection in July 1998, a beating heart coronary arte bypass graft in October 1999, a closed-chest beating heart cardiac hybrid revascularization in November 1999, and the Lindbergh Operation, which was a cholecystectomy performed remotely in September 2001.The original telesurgery robotic system that the da Vinci was based on was developed at SRI International in Menlo Park with grant support from DARPA and NASA.

Advantages of this Technic

Major advances aided by surgical robots have been remote surgery, minimally invasive surgery and unmanned surgery. Some major advantages of robotic surgery are precision, miniaturization, smaller incisions, decreased blood loss, less pain, and quicker healing time. Further advantages are articulation beyond normal manipulation and three-dimensional magnification, resulting in improved ergonomics. Robotic techniques are also associated with reduced duration of hospital stays, blood loss, transfusions, and use of pain medication. The main advantage of this technique is that the incisions are very small and, consequently, patient recovery is quick. In traditional open-heart surgery, the surgeon makes a ten to twelve-inch incision, then accesses the heart by splitting the sternum (breast bone) and spreading open the rib cage. The patient is then placed on a heart-lung machine and the heart is stopped for the length of the surgery. Not only is this a way for bacteria that can cause infections to access the patient’s body, it also leads to a painful wound, which takes time to heal.

  Because patient recovery after robot-assisted heart surgery is quicker, the hospital stay is shorter. On average patients leave the hospital two to five days earlier than patients who have undergone traditional open-heart surgery and return to work and normal activity 50% more quickly. Reduced recovery times are not only better for the patient, they also reduce the number of staff needed during surgery, nursing care required after surgery, and, therefore, the overall cost of hospital stays.

Robotic system that does not work on its own, but is an instrument under complete control of the surgeon.

A surgeon can more easily approach structures during complicated procedures and has a greater ability to dissect delicate vessels and nerves. DaVinci System uses specialized micro-instruments that vary with surgeon preference and the type of surgical case. Minimally invasive surgery, such as laparoscopic surgery, da Vinci surgery requires only small incisions—roughly the size of a dime.

Critics of robotic surgery assert that it is difficult for users to learn and that it has not been shown to be more effective than traditional laparoscopic surgery. The da Vinci system uses proprietary software, which cannot be modified by physicians, thereby limiting the freedom to modify the operation system.