A red tunnel, dimly lit by warm yellow lights leads to the inside of GEM Hospital, Chennai. My growing suspicion that this is supposed to represent the mouth cavity is confirmed, when I look at the bell-shaped blob hanging down from the roof: the uvula. The tunnel opens into the venue of Vayiru 2.0, the second National Gastro Expo. And the star here? A ₹14 crore surgical robot.
At first glance, the Da Vinci Xi robot by Intuitive Inc looks like a gleaming white four-pronged insect. Dr Srivatsan Gurumurthy, surgical gastroenterologist, shows us how to operate it.
“Think of it as a video game,” he says. The four arms of the robot hover over the operating table, and a surgeon, sitting a few feet away, controls the arms through a joystick-like mechanism. “Would you like to try now?” he asks.
I jump at the chance. Taking my seat at the surgeon’s chair, I bend forward to look into the binocular-esque 3D screen, which shows me what lies at the operating table. In this case, it’s a tiny colourful plate with beads and bands. On top of this plate are the robot fingers, forked like a pair of pliers.
I hold the two controllers using my finger and my thumb. A foot pedal helps control the third arm, and the fourth arm is a camera. The controllers move the robot fingers, to an extreme degree of sensitivity. Pressing a button between my finger and thumb makes the robot fingers pinch the beads. The rubber bands however, prove to be a more difficult catch. (Still easier than the claw machine game, those have to be rigged, right?) The operator however, not only picks up the rubber band, but also ties the band around the bead.
I know this, because everything that the surgeon is doing is visible on an LED screen. It is for the assisting surgeons and nursing staff to see.
There are also mics and speakers attached both on the controller, and near the robot arms, so that the operating surgeon and the rest of the staff can communicate, without having to face each other.
A surgical robot has better dexterity: it has seven degrees of freedom (ways in which a joint can move). “The fingers can also rotate 360 degrees in small places, giving it better accuracy. That’s something the human hand can’t do,” says Dr Srivatsan, bending his wrist and swinging his palm on a horizontal plane.
As I marvel at the technology, Dr Srivatsan puts a sobering stop to it: “The robots are used mostly for treating cancer cells.”
Adds founder of GEM Hospital, Dr Palanivelu, “Abdominal surgery, chest surgery, or ones in kidney, uterus, prostates, can be done more efficiently using this robot.”
The surgical robot will be on display at GEM Hospital, MGR Salai, Perungudi until January 26.
