Friday, September 4, 2015

Then, after recovery, you call for a Uber driverless car to take you home from the hospital

Surgery by robot. The American Medical Association's worst nightmare?
The burgeoning field of robotic surgery is dominated by Intuitive Surgical, which makes the da Vinci Surgical System. Intuitive received FDA clearance for the da Vinci in 2000, though at that time it wasn't clear how readily surgeons would adopt the new technology or how patients would react to it. But the da Vinci proved its usefulness early on by reducing complications associated with prostate removal. Because of the position of the prostate, surgeons have to enter through the abdomen and then tunnel down to reach it. The invasiveness of the procedure carries high risks, and two common complications are incontinence and impotence. The da Vinci uses long pencil-like rods in place of a surgeon's hands, meaning surgeries performed with it are less invasive and significantly reducing complications and recovery times.

Hundreds of thousands of surgeries are now conducted with da Vinci systems each year--virtually every prostate patient with a choice opts for it--and robotic surgery has quickly passed the crucial adoption threshold.
We await Donald Trump's take on this.

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