technology for?
and I have a practice that subspecialises
in robotic urological surgery. I perform
robotic prostatectomy, robotic radical
cystectomy and robotic kidney surgery,
such as partial nephrectomy, nephrectomy,
nephroureterectomy and pyeloplasty.
I also sporadically perform less-common
procedures such as robotic bladder
diverticulectomy and robotic ureteric
re-implantation.
how it works.
most advanced surgical platform available
to surgeons. It allows us to perform
technically demanding operations by
minimally invasive keyhole surgery in a
very precise manner. The da Vinci is a
master/slave robot with no autonomous
features i.e. the da Vinci (slave) copies
the surgeon's (master) movements.
over the patient. One arm holds a 3D
high-definition camera and the other three
arms hold various surgical instruments.
These arms can all be introduced into the
surgeon sits in a surgical console, which
has a 3D high-definition viewfinder, two
master controls (like advanced joysticks)
and foot pedals. The surgeon looks into the
viewfinder and uses the masters and pedals
to drive the `slave' robotic instruments.
of this platform?
advantage for the surgeon you operate
very close to the tissue with a magnified
high-resolution view. It allows for what I
describe as `intimate' operating.
instruments have wrists that provide
movement with seven degrees of
freedom, making them more dexterous
than the human wrist.
you can adjust how much the robotic
instruments move relative to the
surgeon's hand movements, from 1:1 to
1:3 to 1:10. The tremor filtration means
that hand tremor, which is present in
everyone, is completely removed.
IN ACTION
medical practitioner at The Wesley
Hospital, located in the Brisbane suburb of
Auchenflower,andapart-timestaffspecialist
at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
(RBWH), in Herston. Following two years
of surgical fellowship training in the US
he returned to Queensland and helped to
establish the robotic surgical program at
RBWH in 2009 and at Wesley in 2010.
and less-invasive surgical system that offers
faster recovery times and is distributed
exclusively by Device Technologies in
Australia and New Zealand. The da Vinci
system is used for gynaecology, urology,
cardiac, trans oral and general surgery.
and the importance of the support provided
by the Device Technologies team.