(soft music)
[Brian] Every now and then,
an industry goes through
a technology disruption.
With surgery, that's come with
the introduction of robotics.
At Intuitive, we continue
to push the envelope
to make surgery better.
[Ted] I've been working in
robotics for the last 27 years.
The thing that most excited me,
was the day I got to sit down
and drive a da Vinci.
It's hard to beat that.
Never did I think that I
would be working to design
a technology that would help save my life.
(soft music)
I'm Ted Rogers, and I'm the Vice President
of Imaging Advanced
Development at Intuitive.
I run the team that
develops camera systems
for our products.
Part of the system is a 3D robotic camera,
that goes into the body
and allows the surgeon
to see what they're doing.
[Brian] As humans, we use 
all of our senses, right?
We use a sense of sight,
the sense of smell,
the sense of touch.
Surgery has sometimes hampered
the full sense of
engagement and interaction.
As you've gone through
the continuum of surgery,
in an open procedure, the surgeon has the ability
to use full dexterity of their wrists.
They can see the surgical site in 3D.
Now, they have to make a large incision
so they can access to
the appropriate anatomy,
and these large incisions
can be a challenge
for recovery time for the patient.
In laparoscopic surgery,
the minimally invasive
approach that followed
you actually have to move your hand up
to move the tip of the instrument down.
Left is right, down is up.
And so, the surgeons have to
have this mental remapping,
as you're looking at a 2D screen,
and the dexterity was completely lost.
So when we came in and said,
"Alright, we believe that
a robotic-assisted approach
will be much better,"
our first mission was
to give back 3D vision
and dexterity inside the body.
We're proud of what we've accomplished
over the last 24 years.
da Vinci systems have been used
in more than seven million procedures,
and we have more than 5000
systems installed worldwide.
[Ted] The whole point of the robot
is to minimize the
invasiveness of the surgery
so we're using instruments that are only
about eight millimeters in diameter
about the size of my pinky finger.
Now we're starting to focus on,
how can we show the surgeon things
they can't see with their own eyes?
So today the da Vinci system
has what we call Firefly,
which is a near-infrared imaging system
that the surgeon can use to
visualize certain structures,
like the bile duct during
a gallbladder surgery
or judging blood flow
during colorectal procedure.
This is just one way that
we can help the surgeon
gain more information about the structures
that they're working
on during the surgery.
In April 2017, I was diagnosed
with aggressive prostate cancer.
I was 48 years old and
I faced the prospect
that I might not be alive
by the same time next year.
Is this the last time
that I'll ever go sailing?
Will I get to see my kids grow up?
Will I outlive my dog?
I was fortunate to get an
appointment with one of the top
prostate surgeons on the West
Coast who also happens to use
our robotic-assisted systems.
I have two daughters.
They saw me go through my own surgery
and how for as major
a surgery is that was,
how much of a non-event it was.
Went to the hospital one morning,
came back the next.
(laughs)
(Can we rescue it?)
Having a family and to feel the love
and connection that we
all have for each other,
it is really the most
meaningful thing in my life.
I think about the world
that my kids will live in,
and whether my work will
make that world better.
Unfortunately during prostatectomy,
there's still a possibility
of having residual cancer left
in the body.
That's what happened to me.
At Intuitive, we talk a lot
about improving patient outcomes.
That concept can
sometimes become abstract.
Well, my experience says that
this is no longer something abstract.
[Brian] Surgery is a good thing.
It cures a lot of people,
but there's a ways to go
before you can say that it's perfect.
[Ted] My own experience has
given me greater insight
into what's it for?
Why is it important?
[Brian] Ted will never do anything half-assed.
He's always been that way.
And him having a da Vinci surgery
really added a renewed focus
to the fact that our job is not done.
[Ted] I think that we're still sort of
in the early stages of
robotic-assisted surgery.
We continue to envision
what the future might be
by improving outcomes, by helping surgeons
treat their patients more quickly,
more comfortably, with better precision,
with more information.
There's something just
electrifying about that
because you realize that if
you can contribute to that,
then you're actually changing the world.
(soft music)
[Narrator] Thanks for watching. If you liked this
video, please give us a like and subscribe
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people changing the world.
