Essential elements of building a robotics program

Abstract

The first successful report of a laparoscopic nephrectomy was in 1991, 1 and just one year later Schuessler, Kavoussi, and Clayman (largely the same group responsible for laparoscopic nephrectomy) reported the first laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP).2 The continued development of LRP moved across the Atlantic Ocean when, in 1999, two groups in Paris reported fairly large series.3,4 These groups had persevered and conquered the difficult learning curve of paving the way for the rapid advancement of this technique. Interestingly, LRP remains more vigorous in Europe and only a small number of American centers have embraced this technique. The group at Henry Ford Hospital stalled in their quest to establish a pure laparoscopic program and subsequently transformed into the first large-scale robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RLP) program using the da Vinci® robotics system (Intuitive Surgical Inc., Sunnyvale, CA).5 © 2007 Springer-Verlag London Limited.