DaVinci Robotic Surgery

Robots Enter the Surgical Room for Delicate Operations

Robert Downey, Jr. won’t be making an appearance in your local hospital anytime soon, but you might mistake your doctor for Iron Man based on an increasingly hi-tech trend in surgery.

More and more hospitals are using robotic surgery, combining skilled human dexterity and precise machine-assisted surgical techniques. With robotic surgery, machines don’t perform any tasks. Instead, trained surgeons manually direct hi-tech equipment using their hands to control four robotic arms that make incisions and perform other functions.

The accuracy of intricate procedures using a robotic device allows surgeons to perform more complex operations through smaller incisions. This can decrease blood loss and result in smaller scars, providing a much easier post-operative recovery for the patient after an operation.

Colon and rectal operations, for example, which used to require a cut along the abdomen and left a large scar, can now be performed using 4-6 small incisions only 5-12 millimeters long.

Because surgical tools make contact with a patient while a doctor directs the tools from across the room, there is less chance that a shaky human hand will make a mistake while operating. During an operation, however, surgeons maintain 100 percent control of the instruments.

The benefit of robotic surgery is that it can also lead to a smaller chance of infection, quicker recovery times, earlier hospital discharges and lower patient and insurer costs.

Smile, You’re on Candid Camera

Robotic surgery evolved from an operating technique developed during the 1980s that allowed surgeons to use tiny cameras attached to the end of a tube to help them better see into wounds. Called laparoscopic surgery, this procedure required that the surgeon manually operate using instruments, but with better vision during an operation. This type of surgery was less invasive because the surgeon did not have to create large cuts and open wounds wide enough to manually see inside the body, allowing doctors to make smaller incisions. While laparoscopic surgery is still the predominant approach, robotic surgery is taking this technology to the next level.

Reasons for Using Robotic Surgery

Traditional surgery is still an excellent option for many surgeries and can provide all of the outcomes a patient needs. According to the National Institutes of Health, robotic surgery can provide additional benefits, such as fewer cuts, smaller incisions, less bleeding and pain, more precision, better visuals for a surgeon, reduced scarring, faster recovery times, reduced post-surgical complications, such as infection, shorter hospital stays.

I can do things with robotic surgery I wouldn't dream of doing with laparoscopic surgery. I have done thousands of surgeries, and this makes me a better minimally invasive surgeon.

Leonardo Reimagined

Most hospitals, including Saint Alphonsus, use the da Vinci Surgical System, made by a California company pioneering this type of equipment. According to the company’s website the machine has been used by doctors to perform more than 1.5 million surgeries to date, with more and more doctors and hospitals using the technology every year. Several other companies in the U.S., Canada, Israel and Europe are developing robotic surgical systems as the demand by hospitals grows.

Saint Alphonsus was the first hospital in Idaho to perform single-site (or single-incision) surgery with the da Vinci robot, and now offers the option for more patients and various surgeries. Doctors can enter a patient’s body through the navel during an operation, using only one incision instead of four or five, improving the cosmetics related to invasive surgery. Surgeons at Saint Alphonsus have performed more than 1,000 operations with the da Vinci surgical system, making Saint Alphonsus the most experienced provider of this type of surgery in Idaho, according to the hospital.