Robotic Surgery Links

Surgical robots, now used in operating rooms worldwide, are not performing surgical tasks on their own, but "lend a helping hand to surgeons," as discussed in this article from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)(1). How Stuff Works (2) provides a nice overview of some of the robotics systems currently in use and how they are used. This next website from the USC Robotic Surgery Institute (3), which was founded by the cardiothoracic surgeon who was one of the first "to see the potential for robotic surgery," discusses the medical procedures benefiting from this technology and includes a few videos of the surgeries (not for the faint of heart). This next article from Science Daily (4) reports on two studies from UPenn "that demonstrate the effective use of the daVinci Surgical Robotic System to perform Trans-Oral Robotic Surgery (TORS) which greatly reduces surgical trauma for patients." Another way that robotic technology is used in surgery is to allow doctors to perform surgery remotely. The history of this development known as telesurgery is described on this next website (5). This article from The Engineer Online (6) describes a project by researchers in the United Kingdom that aims to develop an image guidance system that uses 3-D images to improve the range of medical procedures for which robotics can be used. Brown University's website (7) also provides a nice overview of the history of Robotic Surgery as well as some basics on costs and demographics, and interviews with doctors and patients. Finally, PBS (8) offers this lesson idea, pro viding students a "journey to the operating room of the future."

For links to the referenced articles, see this post from Marcus P. Zillman