The main challenge with remote telesurgery is what do you do when connection goes down in the middle of surgery. You need someone onsite competent enough to continue where remote surgeon stopped due to loss of connectivity.

We explored similar issues 20+ years ago in manufacturing with remote intercontinental control of facility when a large portion of local workforce goes on summer vacation. In the end, we needed to send a group of skeleton crew from US that was self-sufficient to operate the facility if we lost remote connectivity to the facility.

The DaVinci is cool, but you get 10 uses out of each arm then you have to toss it... At a few grand a pop it's not cheap. I have two and am working on 'hacking' the usb interface, but they've epoxyed over the chips.

Interesting, didn't know that each arm has only 10 uses. Why is this limitation? Wear out of arm or mfr limitation in attempt to sell more. Makes sense why some insurance plans don't cover DaVinci and patients have to go for laparoscopic surgery.

How did you get hold of DaVinci arm?

I suppose it is contamination risk ?