It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of a robotic surgeon performing surgery on humans was science fiction. Today, it’s routine. According to the American College of Surgeons, robotic surgery increased from 1.8 to 15 percent of surgeries between 2012 and 2018.
According to various estimates, around 22 percent of all surgeries are performed using this technology. It’s no wonder that the method is becoming more popular. Robotic surgery, or robotic-assisted surgical procedures, offers less bleeding and less hospital time, as well as faster recovery times with less pain.
Less painful and easier surgeries
In robotic surgery, the “robot” is actually a sophisticated machine that is operated by an experienced and highly-trained surgeon. The surgeon sits in front of a console, and uses remote control to operate robotic arms holding tiny surgical instruments. (Yes, the console looks like a videogame controller.)
The arm that holds the camera gives the surgeon an enlarged, high-definition view of the surgical area. The surgeon can see the surgical field much better because they are sitting at a console, rather than hunching over the incision. Sloane Guy, a surgeon who often uses robotics, can comfortably maneuver in places where it would be difficult to do so, such as the pelvis and the left atrium where the mitral is located.
I can drive my camera into the heart and I can see exactly where I am cutting, while in an open procedure, I have to look through a tiny hole to see what I’m doing,” says.
Guy, is the director of minimally-invasive and robotic heart surgery at the Georgia Heart Institute. He says that using chopsticks is like eating with a fork, knife, and spoon instead of a fork. It just gives you more capabilities and makes the operation simpler.
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Faster Recovery After Surgery
Robotic surgeries are also easier for the patient.
You don’t have to break their skeleton. You don’t saw the sternum in two. You don’t break their ribs. Guy says, “You sneak into their chest and fix the problem.” “That translates into a faster recovery.”
While surgeons have always placed safety and effectiveness first, robotic surgery brings a new element to the equation: patient satisfaction. “Quick recovery is very important for patients,” he says. Guy says that while surviving an operation is important, it is also crucial that the operation be effective and durable. “But it’s also important that patients are not sidelined for a long period of time.”
DARPA project ), then went on to start five different robot surgical programs across the country.
I was attracted to the robot because I am a gadget-lover. It’s gadget-loving people who are bringing robotic surgery to the mainstream. Guy says that many older surgeons have never embraced the idea or minimally invasive surgeries of any kind. “But now that they’re retiring and you have a younger generation, who grew up playing video games and using iPhones, they’re more open to it.”
The Medical Procedures of Tomorrow.
Robotic surgery is not only becoming more common, but it’s also becoming more advanced. In Los Angeles, Victor Chien, a plastic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, led a team in performing the first robotic microsurgical reconstruction surgery for head and neck cancer in the U.S. On the other side, cardiothoracic surgery Stephanie H. Chang and her team at New York University Langone performed the first fully robotic double lungs transplant in the world. Will robots be able to operate independently one day? It may not be as impossible as it seems. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed an autonomous robot called Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (or STAR) which has successfully performed abdominal surgery on pigs without human assistance.
I have no doubt there will be robots who will perform autonomous functions. They won’t do the whole operation but they will eventually do specific things, says Guy. “I don’t think of it as a robot performing someone’s surgery, but rather as a partnership between human surgeons and robotic systems.” It may be able [do] to do some things better than a human because of its ability
to process information more quickly.
Sources Article
Discovermagazine.com’s writersand use peer-reviewed articles and high-quality resources for their articles. Our editors also review the article for scientific accuracy and editorial standard. The sources for this article are listed below:
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Johns Hopkins University Hub.Robot performs the first laparoscopic operation without human assistance
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Annals of Medicine and Surgery. Artificial intelligence: revolutionizing robot surgery: review
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Cedars Sinai.First FDA-approved robot-assisted microsurgery for head and neck cancer performed at Cedars-Sinai.
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American College of Surgeons. Robotic Surgery is Here to Stay — and So Are Surgeons.
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University of California San Francisco. Robotic Surgery: Improving Patient Outcomes and Precision
Avery Hurt, a freelance science reporter. She writes regularly for Discover as well as for other publications, including National Geographic Science News Explores Medscape and WebMD. She is the author of Bullet With Your Name On It: What Will Probably Kill You and What You Can do About It, Clerisy Press 2007 as well as a number of books for young readers. Avery began her career in journalism as a student, when she wrote for the university newspaper and edited the student non-fiction journal. She is interested in all areas of science but has a particular interest in neuroscience, the science behind consciousness, and AI. These interests were developed during her degree in philosophy.
