SURGERY ROBOT STYLE A human surgeon makes a few tiny hasn’t even started yet What’s going on The hasn’t even started yet What’s going on The cuts in a patient’s body Then she walks away But the surgery surgeon won’t perform this surgery with her surgeon won’t perform this surgery with her own hands and eyes She’ll use a robot own hands and eyes She’ll use a robot The da Vinci Surgical System has four The da Vinci Surgical System has four robotic arms Each arm lowers into the robotic arms Each arm lowers into the patient’s body One arm bears a tiny patient’s body One arm bears a tiny camera The others hold pincers graspers or clippers The surgeon sits nearby at a console She grasps hand controllers and positions her feet hand controllers and positions her feet over pedals over pedals A surgeon explains how the da Vinci Surgical A surgeon explains how the da Vinci Surgical System is less invasive than other methods System is less invasive than other methods
A HIGH-RISK VIDEO GAME Performing robotic surgery is a bit like playing a video game The surgeon watches a screen showing the inside of the body She moves the controllers to operate DRIVERLESS SURGERY The da Vinci robot cannot do anything without a human operator But surgical robots are beginning to learn how to operate on their own In 2016 a surgical robot called STAR Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot sewed up pig intestines on its own The robot made better stitches than human surgeons robotic tools The stakes are very high A successful operation can mean the difference between life and death for a patient This patient has cancer The cancer formed a tumor on one of his kidneys which are the organs that remove waste from a person’s body The surgeon must take out the entire tumor This will prevent the cancer from spreading to other areas of the body
Robots help make surgeries easier for the surgeon and safer for the patient The robot replaces human hands and eyes with high-tech tools Instead of two hands the surgeon now has four These tiny robot hands can make smaller more precise motions than human fingers The robot camera can zoom in to help the surgeon see better With a special light the robotic system can even make certain parts of the body glow First assistants add a dye into the patient’s blood The dye glows green in this special light The bloodstream quickly carries the dye into healthy parts of the kidney But blood flow does not reach the tumor On screen the kidney now glows green The tumor looks dark gray It’s very easy to see where to cut In the past a surgeon might have removed the entire kidney That way she wouldn’t risk leaving some of the tumor behind Now this patient can keep his kidney He likely will go home cancer-free
