Per my request, I had my wife evaluate the video which scalpel had posted earlier today. She has over 3 decades of OR experience and was instrumental in bringing da Vinci to NH when it first came out. She had a few observations:
I had previously commented on the instability of the clip applicator in the video. She noticed it was a manually operated instrument, not part of Senhance. My bad! So I had to make that the first point here.
Otherwise, she fully agreed at how ludicrous it is to have all that floor space and working space occupied by those monstrous towers. She expressed some rather critical concern about patient inaccessibility.
She noted that there is no wristed instrumentation or flexibility within the surgical space and that the motion of the instruments offers no advantage over a laproscopic procedure. The motion of the instruments works the hell out of the incisions and will probably cause undue bruising and discomfort for the patient over the next couple days.
She agreed that the wild overshoot of motion of the cutting tool is also extremely undesirable; she attributed that as most likely being a training issue where the surgeon is applying too much force to the cutting device, such that when the tissue releases tension, it goes flying beyond the cutting site. The RF energy should do the cutting and almost no additional force should be applied by the surgeon.
The surgeon sitting at the console is holding his arms up in front of him for the entire duration of the procedure. Very tiring, and by the end of the procedure, control may become much more of an issue. Given that his control of the device appeared suboptimal at the beginning of the procedure, I wouldn't want a lengthier procedure performed with Senhance.
The surgeon also tended to lean forward occasionally as if it would offer a better view. He is looking at a flat screen through 3D glasses. Leaning closer to the screen cannot change his perspective or improve his visibility.
Lastly, and presumably unrelated to Senhance, there were a couple people in the OR without masks or hair coverings. It would seem the requirements in the UK are substantially less stringent than here in the US. If you have a choice, I recommend staying stateside if you need surgery.
I love my wife dearly. She is very intelligent and apparently also quite observant, with the ability to be quite critical. And yet she keeps me anyway!
