The defintion of a robot is any machine or mechanical device that operates automatically with humanlike skill.

Today human error is one of the many hardships in a doctors carrier but what if robots could change that. Robots in medicine could make the risks of surgery go down because robots are very precise and accurate. The robots would be controlled by the doctors by remote control and they could be controlled from anywhere. Like a doctor could do surgery on a patient while he is on vacation.

Possibly the most glamorous application of robots in medicine, current state of the art couples a human surgeon with mechanisms that can perform surgery through very small incisions, greatly reducing the risk to patients. The surgeon's ability to control the mechanism is enhanced by providing force feedback to the controls, allowing the operator to have a sense of touch to help control the robot. This type of robot isn't completely independent, and is more properly called a teleoperated device, but uses much of the same technology an independant robot would employ for motion control, imaging and tactile/force feedback. The fully autonomous surgical robot that is a feature of science fiction literature and screen entertainment is unlikely to appear in the near future, and even if technically possible, would be viewed with great skepticism by patients.

The da Vinci Surgical System comprises three components: a surgeon’s console, a patient-side robotic cart with 4 arms manipulated by the surgeon (one to control the camera and three to manipulate instruments), and a high-definition 3D vision system. Articulating surgical instruments are mounted on the robotic arms which are introduced into the body through cannulas. The surgeon’s hand movements are scaled and filtered to eliminate hand tremor then translated into micro-movements of the proprietary instruments. The camera used in the system provides a true stereoscopic picture transmitted to a surgeon's console. The da Vinci System is FDA cleared for a variety of surgical procedures including surgery for prostate cancer, hysterectomy and mitral valve repair, and is used in more than 800 hospitals in the Americas and Europe. The da Vinci System was used in 48,000 procedures in 2006 and sells for about $1.2 million.

Links
wikipedia medical robots
medical surgery.