Monday afternoon we went out to Ogden Regional to meet their new resident surgeon - the DaVinci Si robot. Jeff will be the first to use the DaVinci at Ogden Regional, in a surgery on May 12th. Gus said that one of the heart surgeons said that instead of opening up the chest of a patient, there will be 4 small (like under 1/2 inch!) incisions where the robot "arms" are inserted. Lots of docs are really excited about this!
I put this picture of me in here, because you can see the triple setup. The console I was sitting at is where the surgeon sits and manipulates the robot. I put my forehead against the top of the screen and look into the screen, which showed in 3D exactly what is inside the body - or in this case, on a little "game tray." If you enlarge, you can see two little loops in front of my right hand. I think this thing is a lot like a video game, except you don't grip handles with your hands, you only use your thumbs and 2 fingers. But it is extremely easy to manipulate! By moving your wrists you can turn the pincers to any angle and make them do exactly what you want them to do. They had a little tray filled with colored "nodules" and some rubber rings and a couple of rubber bands and a penny. You could manipulate the robot to pick up the rings and put them over the tops of the "nodules", stretch the rubber band from "nodule" to "nodule" etc. Just beyond the console is the actual robot. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the little arms that hold the pincers. All of the tools needed in the surgery are fed down tubes inside of the arms. To the left of the robot, there was a TV - so people in the room could watch what was happening in a larger scale. It was very cool!
Here's a closeup of the little tray with the nodules, rings and rubber bands on it. It was actually about 3" in diameter. If you click on the photo, you can see the little pincers we maneuvered to play the game. On another little tray, there was some flat stuff that was kind of like human tissue. Jeff did some sutures for us (via the robot) while we were there.
On the TV screen, everyone could see exactly what the "surgeon" was making the robot arms do - picture greatly enlarged.
I put this picture of me in here, because you can see the triple setup. The console I was sitting at is where the surgeon sits and manipulates the robot. I put my forehead against the top of the screen and look into the screen, which showed in 3D exactly what is inside the body - or in this case, on a little "game tray." If you enlarge, you can see two little loops in front of my right hand. I think this thing is a lot like a video game, except you don't grip handles with your hands, you only use your thumbs and 2 fingers. But it is extremely easy to manipulate! By moving your wrists you can turn the pincers to any angle and make them do exactly what you want them to do. They had a little tray filled with colored "nodules" and some rubber rings and a couple of rubber bands and a penny. You could manipulate the robot to pick up the rings and put them over the tops of the "nodules", stretch the rubber band from "nodule" to "nodule" etc. Just beyond the console is the actual robot. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the little arms that hold the pincers. All of the tools needed in the surgery are fed down tubes inside of the arms. To the left of the robot, there was a TV - so people in the room could watch what was happening in a larger scale. It was very cool! 
Here's a closeup of the little tray with the nodules, rings and rubber bands on it. It was actually about 3" in diameter. If you click on the photo, you can see the little pincers we maneuvered to play the game. On another little tray, there was some flat stuff that was kind of like human tissue. Jeff did some sutures for us (via the robot) while we were there.
On the TV screen, everyone could see exactly what the "surgeon" was making the robot arms do - picture greatly enlarged.
