Doctors at the McGill University Health Center in Montreal, Canada have broken new ground in the medical technology field, performing the world’s first wholly robotic surgery last week. Using the DaVinci surgical robot and an anesthesia robot nicknamed McSleepy doctors oversaw the partial removal of a Canadian man’s prostate.
“The DaVinci allows us to work from a workstation operating surgical instruments with delicate movements of our fingers with a precision that cannot be provided by humans alone,” said Dr. Armen Aprikian, MUHC’s urologist in chief, who led the team controlling the DaVinci robot during the surgery. “This should allow for faster, safer and more precise surgery for our patients.”
Though surgeons have been performing robotically assisted surgeries since 1985, the combination of surgical and anesthetic robots, without direct human to patient contact during the operation, is a first.
The McGill University Health Center has performed robotic surgeries in the past, using the DaVinci surgical robot since the summer of 2009. The system uses four mechanical arms, controlled by a surgeon through a nearby console that provides precise controls and high definition 3D images.
More details after the jump…
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