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
DESIGNING ROBOTS CATHERINE MOHR Catherine Mohr loves to tinker with machines She worked as a bicycle mechanic in high school She got a degree in engineering then went to medical school Robots weren’t a big part of medicine at the time That soon changed Mohr combined her engineering and medical background to work on robotic surgical systems She is the director of medical research at Intuitive Surgical maker of the da Vinci Surgical System The company released the first da Vinci system in 2000 This brought the age of robotic surgery The company has continued to develop new robotics technology for surgery A ROBOT INVASION The da Vinci Surgical System is just one of many robots that help surgeons in the operating room Robots help perform operations on many parts of the body Other areas of health care rely on robots as well In hospitals mobile robots deliver meals medication and supplies They also cart trash and dirty laundry away Cleaning robots help mop floors Pharmacist robots
MEET THE DA VINCI ROBOT The da Vinci has four arms for performing surgeries How might having four arms be better than two All four are controlled by one person How is one person controlling all four arms better than two people controlling two arms each surgeon’s console da vinci robot four robot arms Viewing Monitor showing surgery site
