Oceans apart, but surgery succeeds
In early September, a French group performed the first transatlantic operation. Surgeons in New York controlled a robot in Strasbourg, France, which removed a woman’s gall bladder. There were two surgeons near the patient standing by.
Robotic surgery is used in more than 100 hospitals around the world. The technology filters out a surgeon’s hand tremors, and it also can scale down the surgeon’s motions, enabling more precise procedures. Jacques Marescaux, a surgeon with the Institute for Research into Cancer of the Digestive System in Strasbourg, conducted the operation from New York.