Touring surgical bot, on display at SIMS hospital

CHENNAI: Visitors to SIMS Hospital in Vadapalani, Chennai may see an unusual sight at its premises. A roving surgical robot is stationed at the hospital giving surgeons, hospital staff and visitors a feel of the cutting edge advancements in surgery. The robot will be on display until evening of December 1, 2016.
Manufactured by California based Intuit Surgical Inc and made available in India by Vattikuti Technologies, the da Vinci robot will tour across 20 cities over the next few months.
The da Vinci bot has 4 arms, two of which are used to perform surgeries. One arm carries two miniature cameras whose 3 dimensional output is displayed on a console. This console serves as surgeon's operating table from where he manoeuvres various surgical instruments with two joystick like controls. The fourth arm serves as an assistant to the remaining arms. Through 10-12 millimeter incisions (size of a ballpen), the four arms slide into the body to perform the surgery.
"With nearly 40 hospitals already using this technology for surgery in the metro cities, we felt it was the right time to take it to other cities. We expect better appreciation of robotic surgery and its benefits as surgeons can touch and feel the robot and experience its use," said Gopal Chakravarthy, CEO, Vattikuti Technologies.
"Robotic surgery scores over conventional surgery as it enables a high degree of precision and minimizes blood loss, drastically reducing the post-operative recovery time and costs," the company said.
The robot has already been showcased at Sri Ramchandra Medical College & Hospital, Chennai; PSG Institute of Medical Sciences & Research and the Kovai Medical Centre and Hospital in Coimbatore and Vidharba Surgeons' Conference in Nagpur. Over the next few quarters, it will be taken to major Tier-2 cities in India.