TECHNOLOGY
MAY PRODUCE TREND
BY TOM
BALDWIN
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
NEWARK— Steady is the hand
of the surgeon — one hopes.
That is precisely one of the
benefits springing from what surgeons call a development
in their toil — a new robot to perform surgery.
The idea of robotic surgery began
years ago when the Pentagon explored technology,
hoping to enable surgeons behind lines of combat
to treat battlefield wounds.
Now, the forefront of that thinking
exists in New Jersey's Newark Beth Israel Hospital.
There, Dr. Dennis Bordan, chairman
of the surgery department, said the robotics of
the latest da Vinci® Surgical
Systems advance surgery as much as did anesthesia
and antibiotics.
Today's trend, urged on by medicine
and demanded by patients, is minimally invasive
surgery. Incisions are smaller, so the scar is
reduced.
The latest version of the da
Vinci® fills that bill, say surgeons,
who are using Beth Israel's newest da Vinci,
one of only three in the nation.
The name, by the way, comes from
Leonardo da Vinci, the genius Italian artist and
scholar of the late 1400s who theorized about robots.
The surgeon works on a console,
gazing into a screen. The robot maneuvers at the
surgeon's command, baring cutting tools and snips,
above the patient.
In theory, the patient could
be miles away, such as on a battlefield, Bordan
said.
The surgeon sees a magnified,
three-dimensional view of the patient's insides,
moving the robot by way of grip controls.
"It translates the movement of
the surgeon through some instruments into the patient," said
Bordan.
Training on the $1.5 million
robot, which Beth Israel offers, is a challenge.
Bordan said doctors have to be
proficient in the particular type of surgery. They
then watch da Vinci procedures. They take a course
to learn how to manipulate the controls. They practice
on animals. Then they work under a proctor.
Publication: Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ)
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