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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 23HEALTH & SCIENCEAnd Now, Robodoc!
In a medical first, a robot in California performs invasive
surgery
Medical robots have been used to locate hard-to-find tumors and
guide a surgeon's scalpel but have never actually performed
surgery on people -- at least not in the U.S. Now that line has
been crossed. At Sacramento's Sutter General Hospital, a 90-kg
(200 lbs.) machine called Robodoc has operated on its first
human patient: a 64-year-old man with a bad hip.
The robot played a key role in a total-hip replacement,
one of 500,000 such operations performed each year. The trick
in these procedures is to cut a snug hole into which the
artificial hip snaps. The standard method is to jam a tool into
the thighbone with a hand-held mallet. Robodoc, using the
high-speed drill at the end of its mechanical arm, can ream a
cavity that is 20 times as precise.
Robosurgery doesn't have to stop at the hip. In Europe,
where officials are less squeamish about such things, robots
have assisted in operations on the brain, the prostate and the
inner ear.