Your next surgeon may be a robot!

The purpose of this paper is to review the progress that one innovative firm is making in the development and deployment of robots to actually perform surgery on humans with a doctor's guidance.

Detailed dialog with the development team for the da Vinci® Surgical System at Intuitive Surgical and with several medical institutions that have deployed the system.

The success of applying robotic technology to surgery only confirms that human activity and automation are ever closer bound together. The robot provides surgical advantages such as improved visualization, precision of movement, range of movement, ergonomics, and dexterity, and often times better procedure outcomes.

Medical technology can be improved by the linking surgeons with robotics. Surgery joins other once thought of as human only activities, such as reading books, filling orders, etc. which can be improved with robotics.

Other hospitals may find the innovation and success of robotic surgery to be of value to their medical services menu.