Computer Assisted Surgery Do you want your body to be worked on by a computer? Computer assisted surgery is a great way to have surgery done. Smaller incisions, as well as quicker recovery times are attracting many people. Do you really want a computer controlled instrument to operate on your body? Do you trust the code used to run this equipment working on your body?

Terminology MRCAS- Medical robotics and computer assisted surgery FDA - Food and Drug Administration Remote Surgery – Surgery from long distances by use of the Internet, or other means. Endoscope - a small flexible tube with a lighted optical system

Vague Definition What is computer assisted surgery? Any type of surgery which involves a computer giving assistance to a surgeon. Can you think of any surgery that is not computer assisted? Most surgery's have at minimum a heart monitor is that not a computer?

The size of the machine is to large to put into a operating room full of people. It would be very difficult to fit the surgical team and the people into a room It’s a new technology and as we all know new things break a lot. It’s not dependable yet. Some studies to see if it could be done have been tested, But there have been no serious long term follow up. Learning curve to use these machines is steep. There is an extensive training program but surgeons took 30 operations before becoming comfortable with the procedure. "The finesse part takes at least a couple hundred cases," says Ash Tewari, director of robotic prostatectomy for New York- Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, who operated on John Lynch and has performed some 1,400 robotic prostatectomies.

Lastly but never forgotten is the cost of these machines to do this. The cost of one of the machines is about $500,000 and more which is going to be added onto you bill in the end. Some believe that with time and new technology cost will go down, Others disagree.