Ensuring a future for robotic surgery in Canada

There has been a remarkable evolution in the technology that we use in the surgical treatment of our patients over the last 25 years. This followed a much longer period of incremental change over most of the previous century, rooted in the principles of Halstead. At the start of my residency in the early 1990s, virtually everything we did was through a conventional incision, occasionally with consideration to organ or functional preservation, as well as cosmesis. I was fortunate to train just as the minimally invasive era began. Over the last quarter century, the evolution from laparoscopy to robotics and other novel endoscopic techniques has been remarkable. Along the way, the cost of performing surgery has continued to grow, along with healthcare costs in general, presumably to the benefit of our patients