Review of October 2017 Meeting

Our speaker was Professor Prokar Dasgupta who is an Academic Urologist based in London, UK. He was appointed as Consultant Urologist to Guy’s Hospital, London in 2002 where he pioneered robotic urological surgery within the UK. He is credited with the “Dasgupta technique” of injecting Botulinum toxin in overactive bladders. He became the first Professor of Robotic Surgery and Urological Innovation at King’s College London in 2009 and is the Chairman of the King’s-Vattikuti Institute of Robotic Surgery, the only such centre in the UK. He has >800 publications and >£20 million in grant income. He is trustee to various charities including the Prostate Cancer Research Centre. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the BJUI.

Title: Robotic Surgery – 15 years later

This lecture described the evolution of robotic surgery from the very first randomised trial to Telerobotics between London and Baltimore through to the development of the da Vinci system and its impact on surgery and the arrival of new robots on the horizon.

The speaker focused on three main themes- 1. Scientific advances in robotics, 2. Smarter training in robotic surgery and 3. Scientific evaluation of clinical outcomes.

Professor Dasgupta said that the skill of the surgeon was paramount and if you had a da Vinci robot in your department you needed to do at least 200 operations per year to make it cost effective.

Mr Abdul Sultan gave the vote of thanks.