Telesurgical laparoscopic cholecystectomy between two countries.

Abstract

Telesurgery is a form of operative videoconferencing in which a remotely located surgeon observes a procedure through a camera and provides visual and auditory feedback to the operative site. With the use of more robotic devices in laparoscopic surgery, various forms of telesurgery have been tried. We describe the first two international telesurgical, telementored, robot-assisted laparoscopic cholecystectomies performed in the world, between the Johns Hopkins Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and the National University Hospital, Singapore.