On behalf of the Society of Robotic Surgery (SRS), we congratulate our Executive Director, Dr. Vipul Patel on a historic milestone. On Sunday, October 25, Dr. Patel performed a robotic prostatectomy via telesurgery from Celebration, Fla. His patient was nearly 40 miles away in Minneola, Fla. This is the first robotic telesurgery performed in the United States.
The procedure was conducted as part of an FDA-authorized Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical research study.
“For generations, access to highly specialized care has often depended on where a patient lives,” said Dr. Patel. “This study allows us to evaluate whether telesurgery could one day help reduce geographic barriers to specialized treatment. Important questions about safety, effectiveness and technical performance remain under investigation.”
Dr. Patel has performed more than 21,000 robotic prostatectomies. For this study, he operated remotely using the investigational Toumai® surgical system from MicroPort MedBot. This phase of research follows 10 investigational telesurgery procedures conducted between Orlando and Luanda, Angola. It brings the research into the U.S. health care environment for further evaluation.
Good Morning America covered the story exclusively. Members can watch the report here: https://abcnews.com/video/137567957/
We are proud of Dr. Patel’s leadership and of the work of all of our SRS members that continue to strive to improve patient outcomes and provide greater access to quality surgical care globally.