Since the beginning of August, the new surgeon at Prague’s Na Homolce hospital has performed 30 operations from vascular to urological to cardiac surgery.
But the doctor isn’t a person. It’s a state-of-the-art robot called the Da Vinci Xi.
Lest you imagine the automated medical bay from the science fiction movie Prometheus, the Da Vinci Xi isn’t entirely self-controlled. A human surgeon operates the robot via a console, but mechanical arms offer precision that would not otherwise be possible.
The new Da Vinci robot isn’t the first of its kind to come to Prague, however. The Na Homolce hospital, a pioneer in robotic-assisted surgery, had been using an older model since 2005.
But the hospital spent 50 million CZK to update to the newest version of the surgery robot, along with a further 110 million CZK to construct new operating halls with the latest technology.