There are more than 200 da Vinci surgical systems being used in hospitals in the UK and Ireland with more than 300,000 patients having being operated on by surgeons using the machines.
“It is referred to as robotic-assisted surgery but it is very much controlled by an experienced, qualified surgeon who manipulates the instruments using a different part of the machine to allow us to do the surgery.” Said Gijs van Boxel, consultant surgeon at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth.
The surgeon operates the arms of the machine by sitting at a console and viewing a magnified, high definition, 3D screen, moving the robot arms using finger movements.
“It feels futuristic but the concept of robotic-assisted surgery is not a new one, the development that’s gone into this over the various iterations has been extensive, lots of lessons have been learnt.”