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Meet Dr Lavanya Kiran, who performed a record 9 robotic surgeries in 17 days

Meet Dr Lavanya Kiran, who performed a record 9 robotic surgeries in 17 days

Monday May 29, 2017 , 3 min Read

Dr Lavanya Kiran has become a role model for women by creating a milestone in robotic healthcare.

Dr Lavanya Kiran: Setting standards in robotic surgery.

It is a well-known fact that women in tech have to fight very hard to be successful. Bangalore’s 38-year-old Dr Lavanya Kiran has become a role model for women everywhere by setting a record in robotic surgery. In performing nine complicated robotic surgeries in just 17 days, Lavanya has shown the world just how far machine-based surgery has come since Arthrobot, the first surgical robot which was developed in 1983 in Vancouver, Canada. Arthrobot was developed by Dr. James McEwen and Geof Auchinlek with the help of an orthopaedic surgeon.

In just a matter of decades technology has pushed her to achieve a landmark feat in medicine.

What is Lavanya’s story?

Lavanya studied at the Institute of Robotic Surgery, a joint initiative of Narayana Health and Infosys Foundation launched in Septemebr 2016. She now works at Narayana Health, where a hundred robotic surgeries have been successfully performed in five months.

Before Lavanya, a doctor in Coimbatore held the record for performing nine robotic surgeries in 33 days. Lavanya bettered that feat in January this year and now holds the record for the maximum number of procedures in the shortest time, as declared by Intuitive Surgical, an American corporation that manufactures robotic surgical systems, most notably the da Vinci Surgical System.

In an interview to a media outlet, she said,

“The da Vinci Surgical System helps us operate with accuracy and precision. Its magnification (10x more powerful than other systems) and a 360-degree end wrist movement helps us access unreachable places more easily. With barely any chances of complications, patients can go home after a short stay at the hospital.”

Robotics and healthcare

To a lot of people, it's difficult to imagine that a machine can successfully operate on human patients. And so they shy away from such an idea.

Robotic surgeries are performed by surgeons sitting at a console and watching a 3D image of the patient’s body displayed on a screen. The patient is given anaesthesia before the operation. Using levers, pedals and buttons present on the console, surgeons control the robot. The surgeons actions are corrected by the machine and then performed on the person being operated on. For example, the robot is fitted with an integrated vibration filter which measures movement. Surgical robotic systems are used to treat ailments related to neurology, gynaecology, obesity, the heart as well as a few sleeping disorders. Having a robot perform surgery without any human intervention is a very common practice.

According to senior surgeons, robotic surgery is useful in treating oncological and paediatric disorders too. However, operating on children using robots is very difficult as their bodies are too small for the big machine to perform surgery on them.

With robotic surgery becoming the next big thing in the medical field, it is inspiring to see women like Lavanya Kiran coming up and setting such high standards. She has certainly given women everywhere an excellent example to emulate.      

(Translated from Hindi by Surabhi Jain)