Robot-assisted surgery speeds recovery time, helps ease pain
Imagine a wrist that rotates in a circle while bent at a 90-degree angle. Or fingers that flex as far backward as they do forward.
Imagine a third arm — and maybe a fourth.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s the reality of a surgical robot that assists doctors performing intricate surgeries at Orlando Health hospitals.
“As a surgeon, it allows me to do things that I might not otherwise be able to do, particularly when it comes to visualization and control,” says Dr. Bobby L. Gibbons, a board-certified surgeon with Orlando Health Medical Group Surgery who performs robot-assisted surgeries.
More than 6,000 robotic procedures were completed last year at Orlando Health. The healthcare system has been designated as a center of excellence by the Surgical Review Corporation, a patient-safety organization.
Robotic surgery delivers several benefits to patients, including faster recovery times, shorter hospital stays, less pain and swifter returns to normal activities.
The idea of using robotics in surgery has been around for more than 50 years, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the U.S. military, alongside private startups, began funding them and building them.
Two decades later, Dr. Gibbons still clears up misconceptions about robotic surgery for people who wonder about this technological approach to medical care and its lasting effects.
“I get asked whether the robot actually performs the surgery rather than the surgeon,” Dr. Gibbons says. “To be clear, the robot never acts independently. The robot is no different than any tool I’d use as a surgeon to operate laparoscopically, which is another form of minimally invasive surgery.”
The patient is never alone. “While it’s technically possible to do robotic surgery from a different room or even a different state or country, our approach is to have the surgeon in the operating room,” Dr. Gibbons says.