PART 1
Remote surgery also known as telesurgery allows the physician to perform surgery on a patient that is not physically in the same location as them. Remote surgery combines the robotic piece of the cutting-edge communication with the management of information systems. Remote surgery is advanced telecommuting for surgeons, where the physician and their patient is less relevant. This allows the skills of the surgeon to operate without the patient physically traveling to their location. The rapid development of technology has allowed the remote surgery rooms to become more specialized. With the continuation of technology advancement there will be a greater bandwidth and more powerful computers, that will help with the ease and cost effectiveness of deploying remote surgery centers.
As technology continues to advance and the techniques of the surgeons grow and their skills are stored in special computer systems, there may come a day that the robots will perform surgery with little or no human help. This may make expensive and more complicated surgeries much more readily available, which may increase patient satisfaction since the potential region may have lacked proper medical facilities. The remote simulation is being completed by communicating through video and audio with a technician in the room.
I would not feel comfortable with assisting a robotic surgical procedure when the physician is not in the room or in the near proximity. To me there needs to be more research on the telesurgery and it appears there is some disadvantages to this. There appears to be a lag between the physician initiating and the robotic arm actually performing it. Another disadvantage is coordinating the logistics between the physician who is operating the system and with the necessary surgical team. Then the question appears, what if something goes wrong on the operating table? Where is the surgeon who can take over?
According to the Annals of Surgery, they completed a telesurgery on a patient that was in Strasbourg and the physician where in New York. The surgery was completed in 54 minutes and was considered safe and overall reliable. The postoperative healing phase was successful with the patient returning to normal activities with in two weeks after the surgery. In closing, remote robot assisted surgeries appear safe and feasible. However, I still have my hesitation, especially if something would go wrong and there isn’t a surgeon available.
References:
Marescaus, J., Leroy, J., Rubino, F. (2002) Transcontinental Robot-Assisted Remote
Telesurgery: Feasibility and Potential Applications.
PART 2
What experience have you or a family member had with Robotic Surgery? What concerns did you or would you have?
