World's First Fully Robotic Surgery Performed In Montreal

they need to make robotic veterinarians. im sick of having to pay so much at the vet. with robotic vets you can bring your pet, the robot scans it, performs the surgery and then youre done. theyre animals anyway, i think vets are highly overrated.

You are a sad, sad person drinny26. I think you need to go see a robotic therapist.

Anyway, I'm not sure I'd trust a robot to operate on me down there. Heart or brain -- fine. But down there...

@drinny26 - I hate vets. For that reason and many others, I'd never bother getting a pet.

@drinny26

The robots are not doing the surgery. Either you only read the title, or you are just looking for somewhere to vent about vetrinarians, and how they dare charge for their rare and valuable skills that required massive investment, and hard work in a graduate school more difficult than Med School, to attain.

If you could manage to read more than the title, the robots in use here are the same ones that have been growing in use for the last half a decade. The robot sends Hi-definition video to surgerons, who then command the robot precisely what to do. The surgeon is still performing the surgery, He is just doing it through the robot. The surgeon is still operating; the robot just has steadier hands.

@drinny26
It is widely accepted that a license is required to legally catch a fish, but any moron can be a parent. Too bad your dad didn't go fishing....

@MacGuyver -- So here we have someone (drinny26) who wants a robotic vet -- and you think this guy SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN BORN?? LOL... Come on, the guy wants a robot vet, what's the harm in that? I think it's the best idea in the world.

If we can create robots that can scan, diagnose and surgically treat rats, the next step would be pets, and eventually humans. Once we can develop low cost robots that can do safer, more accurate & consistent surgical operations than human doctors, then poorer countries (and richer countries) will all benefit. Less risk means happier, healthier humans in general. Right now it takes about 30 years to create an organic doctor from scratch and at that point they are still fairly young, inexperienced, and like the rest of us, can easily fall victim to human error. If we could gather 500 doctors' life experiences into a single robot, eventually no organic doctor could compete. No exhaustion, no mood swings, no human errors. To top it off, once we build the first successful robot, it could be duplicated by the thousands or millions to help the entire world. I can't complain about such drastic advancements, and I'm glad drinny26 was born so I could vent on such an important topic. If you are still unconvinced that this is a good move, think about a robot that is 1000x more accurate than a human, twice as fast and can operate on 500 micro-sites simultaneously. This could save lives, reduce risk and cure problems that are currently impossible to cure with today's technology.

The only reason people hate veterinarians so much is because there isn't really anything to offset the cost of care. I can assure you that if we didn't have insurance for humans that we would be begging the vet bill instead of our own bill. The link below is for an article from the newyork times about reigning in the cost for cancer treatments. One of the doctors points to a years worth of cancer treatments costing about $100,000. How much does the patient end up paying for that? Depending on the insurance at most probably $10,000. Total cost for a dog to go through cancer treatments at most $25,000. I get it though we still consider pets property in America.
Link: www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/health/policy/20cancer.html?_r=1&ref=health

@brian144

They're just animals. Sure, I like my pets well enough - but veterinary medicine should never be held in higher regard, or even equal to, than allopathic and osteopathic medicine, in my opinion. I would rather be assured that MY doctor underwent rigorous training and academic work before taking care of me before I knew my kitten's doctor. I do not mean to downplay the veterinary position in any way, I am just saying I do think it a little off kilter that vet school is as intense as medical school.

TwoPynts, I find it very ironic that you would be more comfortable having a robot operate on your heart or brain... the two most essential organs in your body. Personally I'd rather have something go wrong "down there" than... die.

@sasquatchcubed Point taken. =D