Surgeon in Wuhan, patient in Hyderabad: How a robotic surgery unfolded in real time

For a patient lying inside an operation theatre (OT) in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, India, the surgeon performing the procedure was not standing nearby, but hunched over an instrument over 4,000 km away in a medical facility on Jiefang Boulevard, Wuhan, China. Yet, according to Syed Mohammed Ghouse, the experience felt almost identical to performing a regular robotic surgery inside the same OT. 

On May 18, Dr. Ghouse, robotic surgeon at the Asian Institute of Nephrology and Urology (AINU) in Hyderabad, remotely performed a robotic ureteric reimplant procedure on a Hyderabad patient diagnosed with lower ureteric stricture while he was physically present at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan. The patient was prepared for the surgery by the team in Hyderabad, then Dr. Ghouse took over and controlled the robotic system in real time from Wuhan using a high-speed internet connection.