UIC teaching its new docs less-invasive technology with robots

Robotic surgery, no longer something out of a sci-fi novel, has become an increasingly popular way to do minimally invasive operations.

Surgeons at more than two dozen Illinois hospitals, including the University of Chicago Medical Center and Advocate Christ Medical Center, use the "da Vinci" robot to operate on the prostate, heart and other organs while sitting yards away from the operating table. About 85,000 robot-assisted surgeries were performed nationwide last year.

But the field of robotic surgery can only grow as fast as the number of surgeons trained to use the technology. Now, using a new, $2 million training center affiliated with the Walter Payton Liver Center, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago will be the first Chicago area teaching hospital to train all of its surgical residents in robotic surgery.

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