This week I tried the Hugo RAS System. This is the proposal of Medtronic for Robotic Assisted Surgery (RAS). We have been expecting for some years, but it is already in clinical use now.
Let me just express my first impressions when I finally knew about how the device was going to be after a long and I guess complex and sinuous development history. It is a telemanipulated device for endoscopic soft tissue surgery, so many of the solutions are fairly familiar for anyone in the field, and even phisically resemble those of the existing devices. But there are two particular features that offer different solutions.
The first one is the split of the arms in different modules. It is supposed to offer flexibility and portability… I saw too many feet around the surgical table… We will see.
The second one is going back to the 3D monitor at the surgeons console. An open console, so the surgeon is not so immersed in the visor and the surgical field can be shared with anyone around using the 3D glasses. We will also have to wait sometime to see how it works.
But in spite of what I would call my prejudices, the general feeling with the real device was that I should be able to reproduce the same surgical gestures and also in very intuitive way. So perhaps, finally, there are more players in the field.
Head and Neck Robotic Surgery 