Watch this film from BBC London about Guy’s and St Thomas’ completing 10,000 operations with the da Vinci surgical robot.
Alexis Schizas: Basically I control three different arms. I've got two on my right hand and one on my left, and I also control the camera.
Karl Mercer: Surgeon Alexis Schizas and his team are prepping another patient for robotic surgery, something the team at Guy's and St Thomas' have now done 10,000 times with this da Vinci machine.
AS: I’ve got two graspers and a pair of scissors, and on one of the graspers and the pair of scissors there's energy so we can burn and cut through things and stop bleeding so it doesn't bleed.
KM: Today they're removing a bit of cancerous colon. The robot allows precision work, with Alexis controlling it from the corner of the room.
AS: So we basically just mobilised the whole left side of the bowel, so from the spleen up the top here down to the top of the rectum.
KM: Here he is putting clips on a blood vessel. Guy's and Tommy's do more robotic surgery than any other hospital trust, something like 1700 procedures a year, and are now using it on more conditions than when they first started nearly 20 years ago.
Ben Challacombe: Precision. It filters out tremor. You get an immaculate 3d view. The surgeon's in a very nice ergonomic position so you don't get tired and you can do many operations over many years. But for the patient, the key outcomes are better able to cure cancer in some cases, better and quicker recovery, smaller scars, less blood loss, less risk of having to go back to theatre for complications. So lots of patient benefits.
KM: Ben operated on Rachel here just a couple of weeks after having her daughter three years ago. They removed a cancerous tumour from her kidney. She was keen not to be in hospital too long.
Rachel Bailey: So I literally gave her last feed in the morning, ran across the road, went straight in for surgery. And then, yeah, when I woke up I think all together it was 25 hours I was in there and then I was out, yeah.
KM: Back in theatre, Alexis and the team are nearly done. Karl Mercer, BBC London.
