Do you know the Da Vinci robot?

^{Hello everyone, it was in the month of January, the last time I published content in English, it is likely that people who read some of my messages in that language remember my topic related to semiconductors. Since then and due to the birth of the "subcomunidad de hablahispana" had not had time to write in English. Thanks to the birth of # stem-espanol, I dedicated myself to promoting my content in my natural language to help grow the community that was founded almost 11 months ago and with the help of @iamphysical and other collaborators, I am very happy for the Camino why we have traveled in this time.}

^{A few days ago, one person told me the following: why do not you share content in English? He mentioned that it was very interesting and that many people would be happy to read it. I explained my reasons! From that moment, I thought that I could publish some publications written in my native language and be able to make an improved translation.}

^{It is the first here.}

A few days ago, they were televising an interesting documentary about a very sophisticated surgical system that immediately captured my attention, that documentary was about a kind of robot that performed different types of surgeries. At the end of the television program, I decided to look for it and write a publication related to this great device.

The documentary was about an 80-year-old man with prostate cancer. This old man was diagnosed when he was around 50 years of age due to a condition called "benign hypertrophy", upon learning of the diagnosis, the man refused to undergo treatment to treat this disease because he said that if he underwent treatments and surgeries his age of life was going to decrease. After several years, the old man began to feel strong pains in the prostate and some symptoms such as deficiencies when urinating, frequent urinary infections and other kidney problems such as bleeding, so this time he decided to undergo a medical check-up and it was where the specialist observed that the old man's prostate grew about 6 times its normal size (something very strange). Due to his advanced age, it was not a good option to undergo surgery, since the prostate is of a very large size and can cause a great loss of blood, which would be very risky for the elderly and could cause their death.

In a way all this painful episode for him was caused by the foolishness of man not to undergo treatment in due time, it should be noted that benign prostatic hypertrophy is not a cancer as such, but without proper treatment it may deteriorate much in a very short period of time and the result can be very dangerous because it can become a malignant tumor. However this treatment can be useful for a while, the prostate does not stop growing and in many cases it is usually inevitable to perform the prostate operation. But the specialist to observe that the size of the prostate is abnormal, that is, very large, something he never observed during his professional life began to have some doubts about the surgery.

The doctor told the relatives of the old man that there is currently a surgical procedure that could be effective for this case, but that he had never used it, mentioned that all his surgeries were laser by means of prostatic vaporization. Then he told them about the Da Vinci surgical procedure that in many hospitals is used in various surgeries, but it was perfect for this type of pathology presented by the elderly.

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So, what is Da Vinci?

^{Da Vinci surgical system Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0/ Intuitive Surgical, Inc.}

This is a robotic surgical system unique in the world and quite sophisticated used by different doctors, thanks to its creation, they have helped to perform different types of surgeries that are complicated manually or, rather, have adopted science and technology their life `professional . This robot was manufactured by the American company Intuitive Surgical and, after the FDA approved different tests for use in the year 2000.

The objective of this robot is to offer the surgeon greater ease when performing complex surgical procedures, as well as to enhance their skills and abilities.

Da Vinci robot is composed of an ergonomic console where the operator of the robot (doctor), performs the surgical procedure comfortably seated, is also made up of a kind of car with 4 magnificent robotic arms that are a masterpiece of engineering design, these arms are controlled by the operator from the console, even the surgeon (operator) has different tools at your disposal coupled to the surgical system you need to perform the surgical procedure such as; scissors, scalpels, unipolar, among other important tools to perform the surgery. And another very important component is the high quality visualization system or also called vision tower, where the operator observes through a high definition 3D screen of the entire anatomical area of ​​the body where the surgical intervention must be performed, added to the Robotic system also has the audio system and an image system suitable for the screen where you can easily observe the radiographs of the affected area.

Now the doctor performs the intervention in a very comfortable way by enlarging the image of the inside of the patient's body, using specialized master controls to manage the entire instrumentation of the robot. The system can receive orders in real time and perform the movements that the operator orders. It is excellent since the robot has the ability to interpret these orders as if it were a human being. However, it must have a maximum concentration and a lot of caution during the handling of the robot, since an error could be fatal.

The main idea of the invention of this robot is to improve interventions such as laparoscopy that are still the most used worldwide, the robot Da Vinci offers a greater range of optimization in comparison with the laparoscopic technique, even better than the hand human, decreasing the tremor and perfecting all the movements that a person can perform manually. However, many surgeons do not opt for this system and still distrust it and prefer to opt for common techniques such as the aforementioned laparoscopy and rely on its excellent human pulse.

One of the main advantages of The Da Vinci robotic system is that it can offer an enlarged three-dimensional image of the area of intervention, this makes a better scope at the time of surgery and offers the doctor a high precision and greater reliability thanks to the margin of error is practically zero.

In the same way as mentioned above, this robot reduces tremor and perfects the movements of the human hand. It also presents greater comfort for the doctor since he can be seated during surgery.

One of the great advantages of this surgical procedure is undoubtedly that it can speed up the recovery process of the patient, in turn decreases pain and blood loss during surgery and the scar is minimal.

It is very sophisticated robotic device is perfect for prostate interventions, as mentioned at the beginning of the post, the error is zero and ensures success in prostate surgeries. It also performs operations on women with vaginal prolapse, among other anomalies. Different studies and experiences affirm that it has an approximate effectiveness of 98%, eliminating the possibility of the appearance of new prolapses.

Important to note that for this type of procedure the doctor does not need helpers, the robotic system can perform the operation without any problem.

But not everything that shines is gold, with respect to this device it also has certain limitations in its use, such as, for example, that the operator can not manipulate independently to his own judgment, that is, to make decisions for himself or to reach places where it is impossible for the robot to access.

In a way that is a very sophisticated system has a limited skill, as well as the number of surgeries that it can perform, something that still laparoscopy exceeds, and today is working to add new functions to this robot...

The specialist doctor needs to have a prior preparation to be able to handle this robot and thus be able to become familiar with the equipment, an adequate preparation is needed so that the person can completely dominate the robot and this requires a lot of time, that as we all know the doctor has a pretty busy agenda.

Another disadvantage mentioned by several specialists and perhaps if it is a great inconvenience is the capacity that is lost to the touch and by this I mean that the doctor is limited to touching or feeling the tissue of the patient at the time of the intervention, although it is extremely fast and effective use of Da Vinci, doctors consider as an important factor since difficulty that the natural feeling of loses during the surgical intervention

It is not suitable for procedures and complexes and few people have access to this system due to its high cost.

^{A da Vinci Surgical System at Addenbrooke's Treatment Centre during the 2015 Cambridge Science Festival LicensedCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0/Cmglee}

I can mention that not everything is perfect with the Da Vinci surgical system, during my review on the web I found some unpleasant events where the robot has presented some problems during surgical interventions. Some people have made public complaints about the mismanagement of the system that has caused the death of several people and that most hospitals promote the team simply to recover investment profits, since the implementation of this robot reaches one million dollars.

Waoooo is a lot of money for something doctors can do!

"I was able to find information about an event in a country in South America "Uruguay" where an accident occurred during the surgical intervention, where the robot arm at the time of performing the intervention held the tissue and it did not release it and the other arm of the robot hit the patient's face causing death."

Personally, you can add that as the science progresses different techniques will be created for surgeries like this kind of quite sophisticated robots. Another point to note that due to the accidents that have occurred these can serve as an experience to further improve this type of surgical systems. I could say that perhaps the accidents that have occurred are due to mishandling, but not to the malfunction of the robot. "Well, it's my assessment," although some people may contradict what I'm saying. I firmly believe that this type of technology is good for humanity, as long as adequate studies, tests and training of medical personnel are carried out.

It is a fairly complex issue sincerely robotics and technological advances are essential to be human, the purpose of improving the quality of life of people and to help those suffering from certain diseases.

This is excellent and more specialized equipment will be created that will replace the man, although I also think that without the doctor's hand this could not be possible.

In the future we will know what science will bring, that is why this world is fascinating.

I wanted to highlight that the content of this post may present some problems in the information provided, I apologize if this may cause discomfort in some readers, I do not pretend to give false information. The post was written from my own point of view reading through different Internet pages and television programs. If you notice any error in the writing regarding the content, I would appreciate leaving your respective comment and suggestion.

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If you want more information about the subject you can visit the following links:

^{Da Vinci Surgical System}

^{What is Robotic Surgery?}

^{Three Laws of Robotics}

^{The da Vinci Surgical System}

^{Is da Vinci Robotic Surgery a Revolution or a Rip-off?}

^{Robots cirujanos, arma de doble filo}

Video credits @gtg

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