Robotics in Healthcare – Lawrence Chang, Parmiter’s School

Professor Nikhil Vasdev, a consultant robotic surgeon, was inspired by his grandfather’s role as a general surgeon in the Indian army. Coming from a family of lawyers in Delhi, he attended law school but dropped out after 2 days to pursue a career in medicine. After qualifying in Singapore, he specialised in urology, the branch of medicine focused on the urinary system.

His passion for teaching and research led him to become a professor of robotic surgery, spending much of his time lecturing abroad. He thinks that teaching enables him to learn from his students and keep up to date with the latest developments in medicine.

The concept of robotic surgery has existed for decades, but it became more mainstream when its potential was seen by the US military during the Gulf War. Surgery could be performed remotely in order to preserve the lives of medical personnel and provide specialised medical support that would be otherwise unavailable in such a situation.

Professor Vasdev believes that robotic surgery can help surgical procedures to be minimally invasive, which benefits patients in the sense that they can be discharged quicker, as well as the economy as a whole because people can return to work quicker. “If someone has an open operation for prostate they may be off for 3 months, whereas when they have an operation for the prostate robotically, people go back to work in 6 weeks.” The chance of requiring additional treatment such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy is also lower, meaning less disruption for patients and less pressure for hospitals.

The development of microrobots is another major part of the medical robotics field. For example, if a patient has a brain tumour which is not treatable with radiotherapy or surgery, microrobots can be injected to deliver drugs into the tumour.

However, medical robots are still in their early stages. Surgical robots are extremely expensive, costing around £1.7 million each, meaning that as of now, mainly developed countries are seeing the benefits.

But millions in investment and increased competition will drive prices down. There has already been an increase in the number of major medical robotics companies from 1 to 6, with that number predicted to rise to 20 by the end of the decade. Professor Vasdev is optimistic about the future of robotics in medicine. “Right now, robots are very much centralised to a few select hospitals which are high speciality hospitals, but I think they will expand more, so a lot more hospitals will get robots, and a lot more surgeons will train on robots.”

Robotics has huge potential to improve the speed at which patients can be treated, the quality of health outcomes and health economics. Only time will tell how long it will be before the healthcare sector becomes fully automated.