Human surgeons work miracles on a daily basis, but intricate operations can challenge even the most dextrous of hands. More and more, surgical robots, such as Da Vinci from Intuitive Surgical in Sunnyvale, CA, are providing a stable assist.In this video, a urology fellow at Southmead Hospital and the North Bristol NHS Trust in Bristol, UK, peels a grape. Using a specially designed display and teleoperation controls, he is able to see both real and virtual representations of what the robot’s instruments are doing. The robot has four arms, three of which can hold instruments like a scalpel or surgical scissors. The forth arm carries an endoscopic camera with two lenses, which gives him a stereoscopic view of the action.
