Robotic surgeon could stitch you up after removing your appendix

The robot will see you now. For the first time, a robot has successfully operated on live soft tissue without human assistance. The surgeons who developed the robot hope that in two or three years it will be ready to perform routine surgeries, such as removing an inflamed appendix or blocked gall bladder. "It's a proof of concept to show it can be done," says Peter Kim at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington DC. "We've shown a robot can do soft-tissue surgery, that it can be done autonomously, and that the outcome is better than that of a real surgeon."