The May 18 online issue of the New England Journal of Medicine includes
an article on the miscalled "robotic surgery," entitled "Robotic Surgery
-- Squeezing into Tight Places."

The full text of the article is free, but one must register, which is
not an onerous task.

Prostate surgery is mentioned as quoted below. "Krummel" is Thomas M.
Krummel, M.D., chair of the Department of Surgery at Stanford University
School of Medicine.

"Tight places, like minuscule ones, seem to cry out for robot-assisted
surgery. Doing an open retropubic prostatectomy, for example, means that
"you are operating in a deep, dark hole," Krummel says. So it is not
surprising that robot-assisted prostatectomy is taking off in the United
States. Mani Menon, M.D., of Detroit's Vattikuti Urology Institute, has
performed more than 1000 such prostatectomies. The robot-assisted
procedure is associated with lower rates of postoperative impotence and
incontinence than the open procedure, says Menon, because the robot
makes it considerably easier to spare nerves and to anastomose the
urethra. Moreover, Menon believes that it permits more complete
extirpation of malignant tissue."

(As I did not undergo a prostatectomy of any kind, I do not have a dog
in the fight over what's best)

Now I will once more launch a rant about calling the procedure "robotic"
or "robot-assisted." There is nothing about it that is robotic. A robot
is a mechanical device that performs according to its programming and
without human intervention.

The mechanism is a *waldo*.

Such devices were a feature of a short novel written in the 1940's --
yes in the prehistory of 66+ years ago -- by Robert A. Heinlein. It is
entitled _Waldo_ after the prime character, Waldo Farthingwaite-Jones,
who suffers from myasthenia gravis and finds an ingenious way to
manipulate objects that in his own person he cannot. One of the many
manifestations of his ability is the fact that he becomes a microsurgeon.

Initially, he is an arrogant, insufferable jerk, but reforms. It is an
interesting story, especially now that the premise has come true.

Finally, so far as I know, the manufacturers of the daVinci equipment do
not mention robots anywhere in their literature. I do wonder about the
source of the error. I suspect that it is some ignorant journalist who
was seeking a simple and short means of describing the procedure, never
mind that it is nonsense.

Oh BTW, Heinlein invented the waterbed.

Rant over.

Regards,

Steve J

"Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience went
to the equipment of that peerless old master who was able to impose upon
the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim that 'truth is mighty and
will prevail' -- the most majestic compound fracture of fact which any
of woman born has yet achieved. For the history of our race and each
individual's experience are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not
hard to kill, and a lie told well is immortal."
-- Mark Twain, "Advice to Youth"