Robots don’t challenge surgeons such as me – they challenge dogmatic practice Ara Darzi

This was a fascinating read for me as I’ve experienced this Da Vinci Robot as well as the latest models in UCSD’s brand new state of the art lab where they teach Doctors from all over the world on how to use these robots.

The big takeaway though has to be that this super expensive robot was always accompanied by a large trolley containing it’s computer and the central processing unit (the CPU or brains of a computer where all the calculations take place) was equivalent to 5 Pentium 300MHz processors. Today’s iPhone has a CPU speed in the region of 2.34 Ghz.

Imagine if 10s of millions of NHS Patients permanently carried a £10Million computer and  we refused to let them use it to engage with their GP and didn’t even encourage them to use it to look things up?

Imagine if every GP in the country was permanently carrying a £10Million computer that was networked to the world yet when we trained them and examined their skills we categorically banned them from even using it?

It should be clear:  Mobiles are no longer toys and it’s about time for Healthcare brands and Carers go #MobileFirst when our iPhones have faster CPUs than £10Million Surgical Robots…