Severance to Become Asia-Pacific Headquarters for Robotic Surgery Nearly two years have passed since Severance Hospital (the main Hospital of Yonsei University Health System) conducted a gallbladder removal operation using the da Vinci System for the first time in Korea. The da Vinci Robot System allows surgeons to perform operations without opening up the abdomen. Several small incisions are made on the patient’s body to insert cameras and robot arms. The surgeon works from several meters away, viewing a three-dimensional video screen. When the surgeon moves his hands, the robot’s hands move nearly in sync, acting as fairly accurate and responsive extensions of the surgeon’s hands. Severance Hospital was the first institution in Korea to adopt this system, and nearly 400 successful operations have been performed. This number has been achieved in only two years, much more quickly than institutions who adopted this system before us. In addition, these operations have been performed not just in one department, but in many departments such as surgery, urology, chest surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, and cardiovascular surgery. Furthermore, not a single accident or death has occurred during robotic surgery, and operation complications were very minor. Impressed by our record, the da Vinci company is considering setting up a robot-assisted operation education institution at Severance, and Severance is reviewing da Vinci’s proposal. The field of robotic surgery is still in the early stages of development, and many innovations will be introduced in the near future. A new system, for instance, will allow surgeons to review pre-operation videos during the operation. The robots of the future will be much more sensitive and show more finely-tuned movements. And robotic surgery units will become more light-weight, less expensive, and intelligent enough to perform programmed operations on their own. The remote operation system (where the surgeon does not perform surgery in close vicinity with the patient) still has limitations due to the time difference between the surgeon’s and robot’s movements, but if this problem is resolved, it will become possible to perform surgery on patients that are even farther away (on the battlefield or in outer space, for example). Nanotechnology and microelectromechanical systems will hopefully reduce the equipment and robots to a size that will enable surgeons to inject them into blood vessels. Research and development of medical robotic systems is still in its early stages in Korea, but it is definitely a growing field. Long-time investments on the national scale must be secured, along with active cooperation between medical and robotics experts. The field of robotic surgery will greatly enhance the medical environment and national welfare of Korea. Professor Lee Woo-jung (Dept. of Surgery), Director of Robot-Assisted Endoscopic Surgery Center