For certain procedures, Pennsylvania Hospital surgeons are working with a robotic mechanism, watching on a screen and moving their instruments using hand controls and foot pedals, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
In traditional surgery, the patient is cut open, and doctors use
their eyes and sometimes magnifying devices to see and their hands to
operate. Laparoscopic, or minimally invasive, surgery was a major
advance because it could be done with a small incision: a laparoscope
and surgical instruments were inserted, and the image on a monitor
allowed the doctors to control the instruments in their hands from
outside the body.
In laparoscopic robotic surgery, the surgeon is farther removed from
the patient. A 3-D camera and machine-held surgical instruments are
inserted through small incisions. The surgeon operates while seated at a
console nearby. There, the doctor, peering into a monitor that displays
a three-dimensional image, manipulates the instruments and camera using
hand controls and foot pedals.
Original Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
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