Essay on Robotics in the Medical Field

In today’s time of demand and supply of healthcare needs, organizations must discover or improve services that can meet the needs of patients’ whole at the same time generating revenue as well as achieving high standards for quality of care. One way organizations have done this is by investing in robotic systems to carry out a range of surgeries. In the following presentation I will discuss the topics of: Investing in the MAKO RIO Robotic System, The Utilization of the RIO Robotic System, Stakeholders

According to UC Davis Heath System, Debra Johnson, a sixty-year-old woman diagnosed with endometrial cancer, had to undergo robotic-assisted surgery from a Surgical Doctor, Gary Leisoerowiz, from UC Davis Medical Center in 2006 (UC Davis Health System). Debra went though with the surgery and received positive results including a fast recovery, no severe scars, and cancer free (UC Davis Health System). However, in a different case involving robotic surgical device used on a patient thing went horribly wrong. According to the Daily News and the article, “Surgical robot da Vinci scrutinized by FDA after Death, Other Surgical Nightmares”, Juan Fernandez died during

The use of robotics is growing every day. With that growth come the multiple types of procedures that can be performed using Robotic-Assisted Surgery. Robotic surgery, while being used worldwide, is most commonly done in the United States, with a total of 367,000 procedures being performed in 2012 alone,

robot assistance. If robotic device can be used in surgeries to improve the outcome of surgeries

As technology improves, surgical robots are rapidly gaining support among both doctors and patients across America. Today more than 900 hospitals have the da Vinci robot which is double the number in 2007. (Freyer, 2010) Da Vinci robots were first approved by the FDA in 2000 for prostate removal, but now da Vinci robots are used for a variety of other surgical procedures (Freyer, 2010). Robot assisted surgery offers advantages such as smaller incisions, reduced blood loss, less pain and faster healing time (Vijay, 2010), as well as making surgery less demanding for the surgeon. Robotic surgery involves many obvious advantages but the impact of cost, access, and quality must

The 21st century can rightfully be considered as the era of technology when the new inventions and discoveries will most likely affect all the segments of human life. At this point, some of the breakthrough inventions of our times have been in the medical field. Robotic surgery has become an almost common practice in the advanced medical world and new uses for robotic assisted surgery are everyday set in place. However, such developments also attract different interests and implications.

Some of the surgeries that Zeus and Da Vinci are capable of performing are; Transoral Robotic surgery (TORS), Bladder Cancer, Colorectal Cancer, Coronary Artery Disease, Endometriosis, Gynecologic Cancer, Heavy Uterine Bleeding, Kidney Disorder, Kidney Cancer, Mitral Valve Prolapse, Obesity, Prostate Cancer, Throat Cancer, Uterine Fibroids, and Uterine Prolapse. The numbers of procedures these systems can perform are growing as the medical community because more familiar with these systems.

The Da Vinci Surgical System is a large purpose-built robot controlled by a surgeon that performs minimally invasive surgical procedures on patients. The system incorporates an ergonomically designed surgeon's console, a patient-side module with four interactive robotic arms, each with interchangeable surgical instruments and a 3-dimensional endoscopic vision system. Powered by high-tech supercomputers, the surgeon's hand movements are scaled, filtered and then converted into precise movements of the surgical attachments. The designers of the system are a team of doctors, engineers and biomedical engineers at a company called Intuitive Surgical.

James McEwen, Geof Auchinleck and Dr. Brian Day were the pioneers in the field of technology assisted surgery; they developed a robot named Arthrobot which was first used in an orthopedic procedure in 1983. At the same time efforts were also made to design a surgical scrub nurse robot and a robotic arm. In 1985 robots went one step further and helped perform a brain biopsy under CT guidance, the robot that performed the procedure was named Unimation Puma 200 (Berlinger, 2006).

Technology has been advancing with the years, and it has changed how people live, communicate, travel, and learn. In particular, healthcare has changed due to the continuous technological advancements. Robotic advancements specifically have been transforming the health care industry. It is becoming noticeable that robotics are now being used for a variety of purposes in healthcare including drug making, moving supplies, administering drugs to patients, and monitoring patient vitals. A progressing form of robotics in healthcare is robotic surgery. One of the top functioning robotic surgery devices is the da Vinci Surgical System. Since 2000, surgical device has completed over 20,000 surgeries, which has set up the movement of using

For example, robotic technology is helping amputees by offering robotic body parts. This scientific breakthrough gives a person the power to grab things for themselves or get around without a wheelchair and continue with normal life. Robots not only help patients, but they also help the doctors by assisting with surgery. One example is the new DaVinci surgical system. This device allows the doctor to perform complex surgery with a minimally invasive approach through a separate console that magnifies the doctor’s view of the working area. This new technique allows the doctor to perform the same work on a minimalized scale which makes it easier to perform tasks where the human hand is too big to work. This minimally invasive approach also helps patients recover from surgery since the incision is smaller, reducing the risk of infections. According to DaVinci’s website, this new technology has helped over 3 million patients worldwide, which shows that many people are not afraid to trust these machines to do their job.

Included in the discussion of their cultures we will also touch on the way some countries feel about these types of technology. It will be important for us to also talk about the environment. Then, finally, we must talk about both the moral and ethical aspects of using robots to perform surgery. By researching and reporting these things, it is our desire for everyone to not only have a better understanding of the technology, but to consider it as an alternate source, if needed in the future. It is technology like robotic assisted surgery that will help us have the long, healthy lives we all desire.

Technology is transforming the medical field with the design of robotic devices and multifaceted imaging. Even though these developments have made operations much less invasive, robotic systems have their own disadvantages that prevent them from replacing surgeons all together. Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a broad notion encompassing a lot of common procedures that existed prior to the introduction of robots. It refers to general procedures that keep away from long cuts by entering the body through small, usually about 1cm, entry incisions, through which surgeons use long-handled instruments to operate on tissue inside the body. Such operations are directed by viewing equipment and, therefore, do not automatically need the use of a robot. Yet, it is not incorrect to say that computer-assisted and robotic surgeries are categories that fall under minimally invasive surgery (Robotic Surgery, n.d.).

Presently, only two robot systems are cleared by the FDA to assist surgeons the first is the da Vinci Surgical System by Intuitive Surgical. Neil Ogden, chief of the FDA 's General Surgery Devices Branch in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, states “ [The] da Vinci is cleared to assist in advanced surgical techniques such as cutting and suturing [sewing]." The second system is the ZEUS Robotic Surgical System by Computer Motion, Inc. of Goleta, Calif. While the da Vinci is cleared for cutting and suturing, the ZEUS is only allowed to “assist in grasping, holding, and moving things out of the way” (All About Robotic Surgery. 2014).

As today’s technology is changing, some of the most major effects of it are superior advances in the medical field. One advance in the medical field is tissue engineering. It is being developed for use in regenerative medicine and soon to be in wider use for other treatments. Tissue engineering’s goal for the future is for the medicine to be able to stimulate other cells around the damage area of the body to get them to grow and produce living tissue (Sciencedaily). Another medical advancement is the monitoring systems and how hospitals can better track for problems and signs of an emergency. This can also help the surgeons decide how to stitch up a patient for best recovery time (Sciencedaily). As technology keeps progressing, another medical advancement is the way surgeons are doing operations. Today, for complex surgeries, surgeons now will get help from the use of a robot for accurate procedures; this will help with the size of the incision and keep the recovery time shorter than during standard surgery.