Robots and medicine: the future is now


I’m reading every now and then about the future of robot assisted medicine. Robots have long replaced humans in routine, repetitive tasks like auto assembly, but surgery seems like a bespoke activity beyond the reach of robots. Not so.

A few years ago, I had mesh hernia repair surgery. The procedure was robotic-assisted laparoscopy. There were four small incisions in my abdomen, one at my navel. I was under general anesthesia during the operation, so I can’t say for sure what happened, but from what I’ve read, one incision is for a camera to guide the operation. One may have been for the insufflation, introducing carbon dioxide gas to create a working and viewing space by separating the abdominal wall from internal organs. Of course, a surgeon guided the procedure (or so I devoutly hope!), so the robot wasn’t on its own. So far, the results have been fine for me, and the sites of the incisions have healed indistinguishably from the surrounding skin.

How many routine surgeries are amenable to robotics? I don’t know, but I have a feeling that the precision and reliability of robots will make them worthy assistants in other surgical applications. The robotic future is upon us.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/patientcenteredmedicalhome/112727?xid=nl_secondopinion_2024-11-05&mh=eb71348a5ff6ae370cc6759bc5dc3300

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