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jedikunoichi t1_iz290wr wrote

Reply to comment by Dr_Esquire in New type of surgical robot used to remove throat tumour by diacewrb

I'm the robotic coordinator for our operating room. We have two robots and you're right, they're very expensive, but we have no shortage of doctors who are trained in robotic surgery. One of our newest surgeons did 2 years of nothing but robots at USC in his fellowship. I have more doctors wanting to do cases then I have time to do them. They would operate 12 hours a day, 7 days a week if I let them.

Doctors don't have to be trained on robotic surgery during residency. It's nice if they can be, but Intuitive has extensive training programs and proctors. I'm sure other robotic surgery companies have similar training programs. About half of my current surgeons didn't train in residency or had minimal training when robotics was new.

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ohaikthxbai t1_iz3477q wrote

This new system lets surgeons practice VR using an Oculus headset, which is way cheaper than an entire da Vinci console.

Not a substitute for real surgical proctoring, but makes a huge difference early in the learning curve.

Intuitive wants more surgeons to use their machines but doesn't do any real competence based training to make sure their devices are used properly - they put all that burden on hospitals so the company can't be sued for improper use or inadequate credentialing.

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Dr_Esquire t1_iz338wr wrote

The post-residency training is still training. For people like surgeons whose baseline residencies are already very long, without getting into the medical field pushing for fellowship post-residency, any extra time is often a bigger investment than it seems.

Also, "intensive" training can be fine as catch up, but (if I had to guess) probably depends on users having some baseline understanding and ability with the machines. A 40yo who never touched one like will feel pretty wonky at the controls and a 1-3 month course likely wont fully fix that. Also, again, comfort needs to be there; you cant just use a machine to do surgery if youre not super comfortable with your mastery of it.

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