Surgical robots are electromechanical instruments whose arms and virtual imaging features are controlled by the surgeon via a remote console. For the past two decades, the integration of robotic systems with medical procedures has revolutionized the operating room by enabling physicians to perform highly complex, delicate and precise, minimally invasive surgical procedures. Our proposal calls for constructing a Clinical & Research Robotics Center to consist of a robotics laboratory and adjacent operating room equipped with a daVinci Surgical System and related high-tech instruments. The budget includes a provision for eventually training all 270 Rambam surgeons in the system's use.

daVinci Surgical System
The daVinci (VIsual Navigation of Catheter Insertion) Surgical System provides operating-room physicians with an alternative to both traditional open surgery and conventional laparoscopy and has been FDA cleared for a variety of surgical procedures. In 2006 alone, over 48,000 such procedures were performed in more than 800 hospitals in the Americas and Europe. The system is comprised of 3 components – a surgeon's console for remote control and manipulation of robotic arms, a patient-side cart with 2 or 3 robotic arms holding surgical instruments, and an additional arm equipped with a 3-D endoscopic imaging device. Appreciated by surgeons for unmatched precision and endurance, the daVinci is intended to facilitate the seamless performance of complex and delicate procedures through keyhole incisions; for example, it is able to introduce a needle into an exact location in the brain in accordance with preliminary imaging or to precisely introduce a screw into the vertebral column in spinal surgery, and was used in 1998 at the Leipzig Heart Center in Germany to perform the world's first robotically assisted heart bypass.  Rambam seeks the device for our proposed Clinical & Research Robotics Center.