Extolling the promises of robotic-assisted procedures.jpg)
One by one the students took their turns at the console, peering through a viewfinder while their fingers gripped the controls, their movements translated through a computer to a surgical robot operating a few feet away.
Just above the moving robotic arms, the students’ precise gestures were showcased on a colorful 3-D display that looked more like a video game screen than a scene from an operating room.
Dr. Joseph Sonstein, director of Minimally Invasive Urology at UTMB, told the dozens of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics students gathered in the Angleton High School auditorium in early September that the scene is one repeated every day by surgeons the world over.
“Using robotics for surgery has gone from the cutting edge to being bread and butter for many urologists,” Sonstein said during his presentation, which was organized by UTMB’s Angleton Danbury Campus and Intuitive Surgical, the maker of the da Vinci surgical robot.
“Certainly everything is moving toward minimally invasive for patients. The pathology and the diseases aren’t changing for the most part. The basic surgical skills are not changing. What’s changing is the technology that bridges those two.”
Sonstein, who is also an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Urology, said that the emergence of robotic-assisted surgery dovetailed with his education at UTMB from 2005 to 2011. Before 2005, the use of robotic surgery wasn’t as commonplace as it is today. Instead, surgeons were using either laparoscopy or traditional open surgery, both of which had limitations for doctors and their patients.
He said robot-assisted surgery has turned out to be the best of all worlds.
“The benefit from a patient perspective is that the robotic interface allows us to do more complex surgery in a minimally invasive fashion than straight laparoscopy. As compared to an open surgery, the recovery time is shorter with the robotics and some studies are showing an improvement in the actual quality of the surgery in addition to decreased blood loss, smaller incisions and quicker recovery time.”
During his presentation, the students’ interest was piqued when Sonstein mentioned that video game players’ nuanced hand-eye coordination typically can be an asset for roboticassisted surgery.
Sonstein referenced a colleague’s study that found high school- and college-aged students who play video games are much quicker and more adept at picking up the hand-eye skills needed for robotic assisted surgery than many residents.
“Hand-eye coordination and just being able to manipulate something through this interface is really important,” Sonstein told the students. “Using your hands, a joystick and looking through a screen, that’s something that a lot of you might do more than your parents want, but little did you know that you’re potentially training for a future in robotic surgery.”
Sonstein’s presentation was part of a focus by the Angleton Independent School District to invite experts to share their knowledge with students.