Study calls robot the better surgeon

A surgeon using the DaVinci robot on heart procedures gets better results, according to a University of Maryland study.

(This is going to go over big at the club.)

Superior Financial and Quality Metrics with Robotically-assisted (DaVinci) Coronary Artery Revascularization is the name on the paper to be delivered April 26 at the American Surgical Association meeting in New York.

(I want to be a fly on the wall for that one.)

The paper essentially says that, because the DaVinci robot makes a smaller incision, patients recovered faster. They were out of the hospital faster, had fewer complications, and the blood vessels were likelier to stay open.

Thus, at $8,000 each, the DaVinci is a good investment, the study concluded.

There are other favorable studies coming in from Maryland on robots.

A 2007 study at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore found laparoscopic surgery patients got out of the hospital faster when robots were used for "telerounding."

The robot let the doctor make rounds and have access to all his records without actually leaving the office.

(In a couple of years you can probably make rounds from the golf course.)

So what happens when heart surgeons become glorified airline pilots?