The First ENTIRELY Robotic Prostate Surgery

You may have heard of the Da Vinci robot before (mentioned HERE and HERE on Geekologie in the past). But for those of you that haven't, basically it's a robot that allows a doctor to control an ultra-small set of robotic pincers and make movements on a scale human hands are incapable of. I'm particularly familiar because I had to trust my dad to the thing earlier this year. And I wasn't happy about it.

In a world first medics at Montreal General Hospital used an anesthesia robot, nicknamed McSleepy, to put the patient under. They then employed the DaVinci surgical robot to remotely perform the delicate operation.

The hospital have been using McSleepy since 2008, and were the first in the world to perform surgery using a totally automated system to knock out patients.

DaVinci is a far newer addition and was only put to work this summer but this was the first time the two were combined.

Dr Aprikian said McSleepy helped to create the perfect conditions needed for robotic surgery.

He said: 'Automated anesthesia delivery via McSleepy guarantees the same high quality of care every time it is used, independent from the subjective level of expertise.'

Now I hate robots as much as the next human concerned with the survival of our species, but the da Vinci did perform well when I needed it to. Granted I would have been rushing my dad out of the hospital on a gurney had there been any mention of a "McSleepy" robot, but there was not. So, yeah, I guess what I'm trying to get at is this: thanks -- thank you, Da Vinci robot. (You have no idea how hard that was for me)

Patient has prostate removed in world's first all-robotic surgery [dailymail]

Thanks to dsm00th, Jose, mark and Jenn, who have all performed surgeries on themselves without anesthetic or proper medical equipment. You all got shot robbing a bank, didn't you? That's what veterinarians are for, haven't you seen any movies?!

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