a) The ability to address more difficult cases is increased with robot-assisted surgery
b) Ergonomics of the situation should be considered as well for someone who can go from standing, leaning, or otherwise "on their feet" all the time to being able to sit and having an armrest.
c) While autonomous robots for complex procedures like this are likely many decades away for a variety of reasons, it's not unlikely that we'll see assistive technology for repetitive tasks in the future. In that sense, we are really at the early stages of the surgical robotics field! (In fact, depending on what who you talk to, the field is as young as 30 years old)
d) I partially disagree with the notion that a procedure done with the robot could be done without it
e) Some competitors are emerging onto the scene, such as Senhance by TransEnterix or Verb Surgical's product, which will progress this technology even further (if not out of the pure competitiveness of it all).
For those interested in reading more, I would suggest the following articles:
[0] Vitiello V, Lee SL, Cundy TP, Yang GZ. Emerging robotic platforms for minimally invasive surgery. IEEE reviews in biomedical engineering. 2013;6:111-26.
[1] Lee SL, Lerotic M, Vitiello V, Giannarou S, Kwok KW, Visentini-Scarzanella M, Yang GZ. From medical images to minimally invasive intervention: Computer assistance for robotic surgery. Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics. 2010 Jan 31;34(1):33-45.
[2] Marcus H, Nandi D, Darzi A, Yang GZ. Surgical robotics through a keyhole: From today's translational barriers to tomorrow's “disappearing” robots. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2013 Mar;60(3):674-81.
Disclaimer 1: Have done a few years of research with a surgical robot, so am biased towards advocating it's use.
Disclaimer 2: I am not from the institutions of the articles I mention.
a) The ability to address more difficult cases is increased with robot-assisted surgery
b) Ergonomics of the situation should be considered as well for someone who can go from standing, leaning, or otherwise "on their feet" all the time to being able to sit and having an armrest.
c) While autonomous robots for complex procedures like this are likely many decades away for a variety of reasons, it's not unlikely that we'll see assistive technology for repetitive tasks in the future. In that sense, we are really at the early stages of the surgical robotics field! (In fact, depending on what who you talk to, the field is as young as 30 years old)
d) I partially disagree with the notion that a procedure done with the robot could be done without it
e) Some competitors are emerging onto the scene, such as Senhance by TransEnterix or Verb Surgical's product, which will progress this technology even further (if not out of the pure competitiveness of it all).
For those interested in reading more, I would suggest the following articles:
[0] Vitiello V, Lee SL, Cundy TP, Yang GZ. Emerging robotic platforms for minimally invasive surgery. IEEE reviews in biomedical engineering. 2013;6:111-26.
[1] Lee SL, Lerotic M, Vitiello V, Giannarou S, Kwok KW, Visentini-Scarzanella M, Yang GZ. From medical images to minimally invasive intervention: Computer assistance for robotic surgery. Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics. 2010 Jan 31;34(1):33-45.
[2] Marcus H, Nandi D, Darzi A, Yang GZ. Surgical robotics through a keyhole: From today's translational barriers to tomorrow's “disappearing” robots. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2013 Mar;60(3):674-81.
Disclaimer 1: Have done a few years of research with a surgical robot, so am biased towards advocating it's use.
Disclaimer 2: I am not from the institutions of the articles I mention.