Robotic Surgery 2000 – A New Generation of Surgeons in the Operating Room

The journalist David Von Drehle vividly describes his observations of robotic surgery:

“A major operation is under way… but you cannot see a patient or a surgeon. There must be someone wielding a scalpel somewhere, but all you can see are people sitting at machines in near darkness. The largest machine, in the middle of the room, is a strange, spiderlike giant draped in plastic covers.”

One of the most popular forms of robotic surgery resembles surgery performed through small incisions, also called keyhole or minimally invasive surgery: laparoscopic surgery. However, rather than having the surgeon lean over the patient and directly manipulate tubelike devices inserted into the abdominal cavity, robotic surgery allows the surgeon to sit comfortably at a console and manipulate instruments attached to several robotic arms while viewing three-dimensional images from inside the patient's body.

Robotic surgery offers advantages beyond those of laparoscopic surgery, which minimizes blood loss and pain and speeds patient recovery. For example, robotic surgery can suppress a surgeon's hand tremor. Large hand movements can be scaled down to provide greater precision in small movements and manipulations. "Telesurgery" also describes how robotic surgery allows a surgeon to operate on a patient in a different location using high-speed communication networks.

In 2000, the American surgeon Mani Menon became the first surgeon in the United States to remove a cancerous prostate gland with robotic assistance and, in the same year, established the country's first robotic prostatectomy center. Today, robot-assisted laparoscopy is used for hysterectomy, mitral valve repair, hernia repair, gallbladder removal and much more. Von Drehle notes how easy it is to visualize the surgical area using these approaches:

“The abdomen is a beautiful place, where surgeons can use carbon dioxide to inflate the area like a balloon and then light it up like a movie studio.”

Historical Figure Mentioned in the Article: Mani Menon (b. 1948)

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