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Technology And Medicine : Are Robotic Surgeons Better Than Human Surgeons?

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Technology and Medicine: Are Robotic Surgeons Better Than Human Surgeons?
Today, robots are utilized to execute highly specific, precise, and dangerous tasks in industry and research previously not possible with a human work force. We depend on robots to build our cars, land our planes, and operate at a level of precision and accuracy with dedicated motions scalable in speed and force unreachable for human beings. Oxford Dictionaries define robots as “A machine capable of automatically carrying out a complex series of movements, especially one which is programmable.” The use of robots to assist in performing surgical procedures has been developed over the past 20 years, and current robotic systems are quickly being introduced to the…show more content…
Advanced robotic systems give doctors greater control and vision during surgery, allowing them to perform safe, less invasive, and precise surgical procedures. One of the benefits of using such a precise system is smaller incisions, resulting in reduced risk of infection and faster recovery time (Intuitive Surgical 2015).
The US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health states, “As attractive as minimally invasive surgery is, there are several limitations. Some of the more prominent limitations involve the technical and mechanical nature of the equipment. Inherent in current laparoscopic equipment is a loss of force and tactile, natural hand-eye coordination, and dexterity.” (Ann Surg. 2004). According to the report, moving the laparoscopic instruments while watching a 3-dimensional video monitor is somewhat counterintuitive. Their counterargument is that the surgeon must move the instrument in the opposite direction from the desired target on the monitor to interact with the site of interest. Thus, hand-eye coordination is compromised. The rebuttal of the argument is that the motivation to develop surgical robots is based on the desire to overcome the limitations of current laparoscopies technologies and to expand the benefits of minimal invasive surgery (Ann Surg. 2004).
Second, robotic surgeons’ flexibility surpasses human surgeons because the unit
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