Robot Surgeon

Would YOU put your life in the hands of a robot surgeon?

Robotic surgery sounds like the ultimate in safe, efficient and effective 21st-century health care. Instead of a surgeon's potentially fallible human hand, you have a robot with its precision-built mechanical arms able to perform micro-accurate procedures on tissues deep within the body.

With robot-assisted surgery, the surgeon sits at a nearby console with a 3D view of the surgical site. Computer technology translates their hand movements into precise manoeuvres of the instruments. If the surgeon's hand develops a tremor, the computer system knows to ignore it.

The technology also means surgeons can use finer instruments that cause less damage to the body. In turn, this should reduce blood loss and the need for blood transfusions - and mean that patients recover more quickly. With this kind of promise, little wonder that multi-million-pound robot machines are performing ever more NHS ops across Britain. The technology, which was first used in 2000, is employed increasingly in intricate surgery such as hysterectomy, gallbladder removal and repair of damaged heart valves.

But while for many patients robot surgery will have been entirely smooth, the technology is not risk-free. And leading experts are now voicing growing fears about its safety and effectiveness, warning of a growing human toll. Read the entire article