Robot-assisted surgery at the Science Museum

Professor the Lord Ara Darzi and the Da Vinci robot

Professor the Lord Ara Darzi re-enacts the UK's first robot-assisted keyhole surgery operation

A unique event took place on Friday 10 March at the Science Museum in London, as part of the museum’s major Robots exhibition and accompanying programme.

The celebrated Imperial surgeon Professor Lord Ara Darzi took the audience back in time to the year 2000 to re-enact the UK’s first robot-assisted keyhole surgery operation.

Using the UK’s first da Vinci surgical robot device (recently acquired by the Science Museum for its major new Medical Galleries, scheduled to open in 2019), Professor Darzi and his team demonstrated how he removed his patient’s gallbladder in that pioneering operation, controlling the surgical instruments remotely from a console on the other side of the operating theatre.

Professor Darzi gave a commentary to the capacity audience of 300 as he operated (though this time his ‘patient’ was a realistic simulator), while giant screens showed the procedure in high-res detail. After the procedure, Professor Darzi and Professor Roger Kneebone (who directs Imperial’s Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science) explored current challenges and controversies around robotics in surgery before opening the discussion to the audience and a wider panel for a lively debate.

Watch a video of the event here

Find out more about the Science Museum’s Robots exhibiton:  https://beta.sciencemuseum.org.uk/robots/