{"id":2044099,"date":"2026-07-14T14:30:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2044099"},"modified":"2026-07-14T14:30:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:30:49","slug":"humanoid-robots-just-performed-surgery-using-standard-medical-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2044099","title":{"rendered":"Humanoid Robots Just Performed Surgery Using Standard Medical Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/07\/two-Yip-humanoid-robots-surgery-1200&#215;675.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"post-2000785159 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-health tag-healthcare tag-medical-innovations tag-robotics tag-surgery\">\n<div class=\"entry-content prose dark:prose-invert lg:prose-xl prose-science dark:prose-science\">\n<p>It\u2019s a fact. Specialist surgeons who tackle rare and frequently challenging operations report some of the highest burnout rates among physicians, according to the American Medical Association. You can imagine why: emergency globetrotting, difficult high-stakes work even when the patient comes to you, and all the usual miseries America\u2019s for-profit healthcare system has foisted upon its medical professionals.<\/p>\n<p>But a team of engineers and surgeons at the University of California, San Diego, just recently reported two successful pre-clinical trials that might help. Humanoid robots designed in collaboration with UC San Diego\u2019s Jacobs School of Engineering performed two proof-of-concept surgeries using the typical, handheld surgical tools intended for human doctors. While plenty of remote surgeries have already deployed custom-made robotic arms (even in space), UC San Diego\u2019s team noted that its trials were the first to incorporate android-like automatons capable of handling these surgical instruments just like a flesh-and-blood doctor.<\/p>\n<p>In one trial, UC San Diego\u2019s robot surgeon worked with a human assistant to carefully remove the gallbladder of a living test animal (a pig) with a licensed veterinarian on call to supervise anesthesia and general welfare. In the second surgery, two of these robots worked together to conduct an identical gallbladder surgery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemotely operated and autonomous humanoid robots have real potential for amplifying access to critical surgeries to which patients would otherwise not have access,\u201d one of the study\u2019s senior authors, engineering professor Michael Yip, said in a statement. \u201cThis can help address the healthcare crisis not only in the United States but also worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Ambulatory android<\/h2>\n<p>Most of today\u2019s surgery robots, like the over 1,700 da Vinci surgical systems in hospitals worldwide, are hefty mechanical behemoths with three-to-four arms, specialized tools, and a weight of about 1,800 pounds (817 kilograms). UC San Diego\u2019s robot \u201cSurgie,\u201d comparatively, only weighs about 60 pounds (27 kg).<\/p>\n<p>And, unlike the da Vinci systems, Surgie has two legs it can walk around on, perhaps one day to go grab sorely needed instruments for its teammates. Yip hopes to see these humanoids used in contexts where remodeling a whole operating bay to make room for a da Vinci would be (frankly) impractical.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany communities struggle with adequate staffing on the surgical team, which means patients are not being treated,\u201d according to Yip, who also serves as director of UC San Diego\u2019s Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab).\u00a0\u201cYou can imagine these robots being deployed in remote communities where staffing is challenging, or in austere environments like search and rescue scenarios where a massive deployment of field medicine is needed in a short period of time,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<div class=\"not-prose video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"humanoid robots used to perform a world's first teleoperated robotic surgery\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Qp0eiQL6vB8?feature=oembed\" frameborder allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h2>Automated assistants<\/h2>\n<p>The attending human surgeons and surgical trainees who worked with these robots also completed post-operation surveys for the new study, published in the journal Nature this July. The humanoids\u2019 remote operators, for example, answered questions about the system\u2019s ergonomics and fidelity to the guidance of their own hands. The other participants weighed in on having bots as teammates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were surprised at how well Surgie meshed with our workspace and workflow,\u201d study co-author and general surgery resident Nikita Thareja said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Latency did, however, prove to be an issue for the robots\u2019 remote operators\u2014although the researchers said they\u2019re working to improve this for long-distance operations in the future. According to one of the surgeons who actually operated the androids, Shanglei Liu of UC San Diego\u2019s School of Medicine, the robotic surgeries\u2019 slow pace and occasional need to recalibrate was not unusual for early-stage systems of this kind.<\/p>\n<p>A robotic version of the kind of minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery conducted during these preclinical trials used to take six hours. Now they can take half an hour.<\/p>\n<p>Liu shared his colleagues\u2019 optimism over Surgie: \u201cIt\u2019s a fraction of the cost and it takes a fraction of the space in an operating room,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s easy to deploy, anywhere from rural areas, to the battlefield, and even to space.\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"entry-content prose dark:prose-invert lg:prose-xl prose-science dark:prose-science\">\n<p>It\u2019s a fact. Specialist surgeons who tackle rare and frequently challenging operations report some of the highest burnout rates among physicians, according to the American Medical Association. You can imagine why: emergency globetrotting, difficult high-stakes work even when the patient comes to you, and all the usual miseries America\u2019s for-profit healthcare system has foisted upon its medical professionals.<\/p>\n<p>But a team of engineers and surgeons at the University of California, San Diego, just recently reported two successful pre-clinical trials that might help. Humanoid robots designed in collaboration with UC San Diego\u2019s Jacobs School of Engineering performed two proof-of-concept surgeries using the typical, handheld surgical tools intended for human doctors. While plenty of remote surgeries have already deployed custom-made robotic arms (even in space), UC San Diego\u2019s team noted that its trials were the first to incorporate android-like automatons capable of handling these surgical instruments just like a flesh-and-blood doctor.<\/p>\n<p>In one trial, UC San Diego\u2019s robot surgeon worked with a human assistant to carefully remove the gallbladder of a living test animal (a pig) with a licensed veterinarian on call to supervise anesthesia and general welfare. In the second surgery, two of these robots worked together to conduct an identical gallbladder surgery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemotely operated and autonomous humanoid robots have real potential for amplifying access to critical surgeries to which patients would otherwise not have access,\u201d one of the study\u2019s senior authors, engineering professor Michael Yip, said in a statement. \u201cThis can help address the healthcare crisis not only in the United States but also worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Ambulatory android<\/h2>\n<p>Most of today\u2019s surgery robots, like the over 1,700 da Vinci surgical systems in hospitals worldwide, are hefty mechanical behemoths with three-to-four arms, specialized tools, and a weight of about 1,800 pounds (817 kilograms). UC San Diego\u2019s robot \u201cSurgie,\u201d comparatively, only weighs about 60 pounds (27 kg).<\/p>\n<p>And, unlike the da Vinci systems, Surgie has two legs it can walk around on, perhaps one day to go grab sorely needed instruments for its teammates. Yip hopes to see these humanoids used in contexts where remodeling a whole operating bay to make room for a da Vinci would be (frankly) impractical.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany communities struggle with adequate staffing on the surgical team, which means patients are not being treated,\u201d according to Yip, who also serves as director of UC San Diego\u2019s Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab).\u00a0\u201cYou can imagine these robots being deployed in remote communities where staffing is challenging, or in austere environments like search and rescue scenarios where a massive deployment of field medicine is needed in a short period of time,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<div class=\"not-prose video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"humanoid robots used to perform a world's first teleoperated robotic surgery\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Qp0eiQL6vB8?feature=oembed\" frameborder allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h2>Automated assistants<\/h2>\n<p>The attending human surgeons and surgical trainees who worked with these robots also completed post-operation surveys for the new study, published in the journal Nature this July. The humanoids\u2019 remote operators, for example, answered questions about the system\u2019s ergonomics and fidelity to the guidance of their own hands. The other participants weighed in on having bots as teammates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were surprised at how well Surgie meshed with our workspace and workflow,\u201d study co-author and general surgery resident Nikita Thareja said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Latency did, however, prove to be an issue for the robots\u2019 remote operators\u2014although the researchers said they\u2019re working to improve this for long-distance operations in the future. According to one of the surgeons who actually operated the androids, Shanglei Liu of UC San Diego\u2019s School of Medicine, the robotic surgeries\u2019 slow pace and occasional need to recalibrate was not unusual for early-stage systems of this kind.<\/p>\n<p>A robotic version of the kind of minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery conducted during these preclinical trials used to take six hours. Now they can take half an hour.<\/p>\n<p>Liu shared his colleagues\u2019 optimism over Surgie: \u201cIt\u2019s a fraction of the cost and it takes a fraction of the space in an operating room,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s easy to deploy, anywhere from rural areas, to the battlefield, and even to space.\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/humanoid-robots-just-performed-surgery-using-standard-medical-tools-2000785159&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/07\/two-Yip-humanoid-robots-surgery-1200&#215;675.jpg&#8221;] It\u2019s a fact. Specialist surgeons who tackle rare and frequently challenging operations report some of the highest burnout rates among physicians, according to the American Medical Association. You can imagine why: emergency globetrotting, difficult high-stakes work even when the patient comes to you, and all the usual miseries America\u2019s for-profit healthcare system [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,53],"class_list":["post-2044099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-gizmodo-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2044099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2044099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2044099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2044099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}