InterviewKorean doctor operates remotely from Seoul on pig in Shanghai

Sitting at a console in Seoul, a Korean doctor successfully operated on a pig using a surgical robot about 870 kilometers away in Shanghai, marking Korea’s first cross-border telesurgery demonstration using a commercial platform.

Kang Seok-ho, a professor of urology at Korea University College of Medicine, says the technology could profoundly transform surgical care, allowing doctors to operate from distant facilities and across borders, including on patients in disaster zones and battlefields.

“I was delighted. I also found it remarkable that I could actually perform surgery in Shanghai from here,” Kang said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.

The demonstration was conducted on Friday at Coex in Seoul during the Korean Urological Association’s annual meeting. The Toumai system developed by China’s MicroPort MedBot was used, according to the hospital.

Telesurgery allows a physician to control surgical instruments through a communications network rather than being physically present in the same surgery as the patient. Unlike remote consultations, it involves the surgeon directly manipulating the robot performing the procedure.

Kang said advances in communications networks and robotic systems have accelerated the development of telesurgery over the past two to three years. Reducing delays is important, he said, given that even a brief interruption during surgery could have severe consequences.

During his demonstration, the delay between his movements and the system’s response was about 30 to 40 milliseconds, allowing him to operate smoothly, he said.

The procedure used ordinary telecommunications networks rather than a specially installed connection, he said.

A major milestone in telesurgery came in 2001 with Operation Lindbergh, in which surgeons in New York remotely performed gallbladder surgery on a patient in Strasbourg, France.

About 1,500 telesurgical procedures have been performed on human patients worldwide, most of them in China, according to Kang.

But wider adoption in Korea will require more than technical advances, he said. Questions about medical liability, payment and patient data security remain major obstacles.

“If something goes wrong, who bears responsibility — the surgeon operating remotely or the doctors at the patient’s location? And how do we protect patient information and surgical footage transmitted over the network?” Kang said. “Reaching a consensus on these issues is not easy.”

He said China has moved quickly with government support, while other nations continue to grapple with regulatory and ethical questions. Korean law permits certain forms of remote support between medical professionals, but the relevant provisions do not expressly authorize direct cross-border robotic surgery on patients.

Kang sees potential beyond the abdominal procedures that currently dominate telesurgery. Advances in robots designed for blood vessels and orthopedic procedures could eventually allow specialists to treat a wider range of emergencies remotely, including in disaster zones and on battlefields.

“If the necessary foundations are put in place, telesurgery could expand surgical treatment options in areas that specialists cannot easily reach,” he said. “In the long term, we could explore its use in extreme environments, at sea, in polar regions and even in space.”

For now, he plans further animal experiments, including a possible cross-border procedure using a single-port robot designed to insert surgical instruments through one incision.

“What doctors need to do is continue improving the technology and demonstrating that it can be used safely for patients,” he said. “I think a social consensus will eventually emerge.”