Advances in AI and robotics can potentially enhance the dexterity skills of human surgeons.
According to a Science Robotics paper, robots may soon play a more significant role in surgery.
Advances in generative AI could enable robots to assist surgeons in complex tasks like suturing under an augmented dexterity approach, where surgeons oversee the robot’s work and take over if needed.
The paper, Augmented Dexterity: How robots can enhance human surgical skills, suggests one way the latest developments in artificial intelligence could be used to advance medicine and improve the health and wellness of society.
‘A surgeon’s dexterity often separates the good surgeons from the great ones,’ write Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley professor, and Gary Guthart, the CEO of Intuitive Surgical.
Augmented dexterity could elevate good surgeons to the best, enabling faster, more reliable procedures, they suggest.
Robots assist in minimally invasive surgeries, but humans control nearly all movements.
With augmented dexterity, robots would develop and place digital images of planned manoeuvres on top of live images of the surgical field.
A human surgeon would review, edit and approve the plan, then supervise it as the robot executes it.
This could be applied to tasks like suturing and debridement, where surgeons’ skills vary and minor errors could harm patients.
This approach could also expand telesurgery, allowing remote collaboration among surgeons.
For example, the authors write that surgeons could switch who controls a robot and ‘create access to skilled surgeons at a distance’.
Augmented dexterity isn’t yet available in operating rooms, but Intuitive Surgical, the world’s largest surgical robotics company, is ‘taking steps toward’ developing these capabilities for robots such as its da Vinci system.
Guthart, a Berkeley College of Engineering alum, received support from Intuitive Surgical.
Goldberg, who also holds appointments in Berkeley’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), received support from the US National Science Foundation.
