The video that recently went viral on Reddit shows Dr. Zhang Xu operating on a patient in Beijing, China, from about 8,000 km away in Rome, Italy. The surgery took place in July 2024.
Zhang Xu is the Director of Urology at the General Hospital of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The doctor commented on the challenges of performing a procedure remotely.
“The biggest problem with remote surgery is communication and whether there is any delay,” Zhang said, according to the state broadcaster CCTV. “Today’s surgery basically had no delay and was almost the same as an in-person surgery,” he noted.
The doctor stated that “tele-surgery is one of the most important future directions in surgery development.”
The operation was made possible by China’s high-speed 5G network and fiber optic connections. With this infrastructure, Zhang was able to remove a prostate lesion from the patient in Beijing while physically in Rome.
+Watch the surgery video
The robots mimicked the movements of the doctor from 8,000 km away, as shown in the video that delighted technology enthusiasts. If necessary, a medical team was on standby to take over the procedure.
“For me, it was truly a historic experience, a historic moment,” said Vito Pansadoro, one of the conference directors and an expert in robotic surgery, according to CCTV.
The doctor celebrated the success of remote surgery in an interview with Nature magazine.
“We are overcoming geographic inaccessibility, bringing the best surgical resources from metropolitan cities like Beijing and Shanghai to the most remote areas, in real time,” Zhang explained.
Photos: Reddit r/Damnthatsinteresting. This content was created with AI assistance and reviewed by the editorial team.
