Humans make mistakes. Even very experienced surgeons are not infallible. But what if these doctors could combine their knowledge with experience together and create a surgical standard of care, to be performed by machines?
That's the idea behind surgical robots, which may soon carry out most surgeries, from sewing up tiny wounds to performing heart procedures. Lots of these operations are actually already completed with the assistance of robots. However, a recent test suggests that robots in the operating room may soon go a step further, performing on soft tissue completely on their own, from the beginning to the end.
The Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot(STAR) has succeeded in completing surgeries on pigs. "We're the first to test out autonomous robotic surgery with soft-tissue surgery, and when compared to standard operation, it's better," says Peter Kim, a professor of surgery. "Our purpose is not to replace surgeons, but it will make the surgeons better and make the procedures safer."
A recent Mayo Clinic study discovered that most surgical errors-including operating on the wrong site or side of the body, or even leaving tools or objects inside the patient-occur every one out of 22,000 procedures. Though that's rare, robots like STAR would aim to lower the number even further.
In the surgical system called da Vinci, surgeons lay their arms inside instruments and use their hands to control the movement of robotic tools on the operating table from afar. Surgeons control the robot's every major move, and thus its results may vary based on the surgeon's training or experience.
On the other hand, STAR is entirely autonomous. Not only is it able to work on its own and perform surgeries with a more flexible "hand", but it's also able to react to the unexpected incidents. Cutting into hard tissue like bones is one thing, but operating on moving soft tissue is far more complex. STAR can respond to a changing environment, which is similar to how self-driving cars are programmed to not only drive on the high way, but also react to another driver who makes a mistake and gets in your way.
【小题1】What does the underlined word “infallible” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Quite smart. | B．Really creative. |
| C．Rather responsible. | D．Always right. |
| A．It can perform the operation on its own. |
| B．It has been widely used in the operating room. |
| C．It can make surgeries much faster. |
| D．It will take the place of surgeons. |
| A．Robots are trained from afar. | B．Robots always make mistakes. |
| C．Surgery results depend on surgeons. | D．Surgeons have trouble controlling robots. |
