Dr. Mireia Musquera is a Urologist at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. Her vocation for surgery comes from her childhood, when she was already attracted to this profession. Among his many achievements, he highlighted that he was a member of the team that performed the world’s first transvaginal kidney transplant from a living donor, in 2009, and also participated in the world’s first robot-assisted vaginally inserted kidney transplant, in 2015. Each per year, he performs more than 200 highly complex interventions in the field of oncological urology and has participated in the first operations on living patients with Rob Surgical’s Bitrack robot. After the success of her interventions, we shared a talk to find out her impressions about minimally invasive surgery and robotic surgery.
How do you see the evolution of surgery during your professional career?
In recent years, surgery has changed a lot. We have gone from open surgery to laparoscopic surgery and currently to robot-assisted surgery. All this has improved the results.
What is minimally invasive surgery?
Minimally invasive surgery consists of making as few incisions and keeping them as small as possible to improve both cosmetic results and comorbidity results.
Does working with a surgical robot like Bitrack make your job as a surgeon easier?
Working with robots improves the quality of surgeries, improves vision, improves movements… and also magnification. All this contributes to the fact that you can perform a much more precise surgery.
During the operation with the assistance of the Bitrack robot, do you have enough work space?
The design of the Bitrack robot allows it to be very close to the patient throughout the entire operation and to have enough non-collision space to work comfortably.
What advantage does 3D vision bring to the operation?
The vision in three dimensions during the laparoscopic operation and the robot-assisted operation provides a better visualization of the field. It is as if you were performing open surgery, seeing the structures and depth much better.
How have your beginnings with robotic surgery been?
I started robotic surgery during a fellowship in Toronto where I watched the apprenticeship of open surgeons and laparoscopic surgeons getting started with robotic surgery. There I had the opportunity to start training in robotic surgery. I already had experience in open and laparoscopic surgery and the step was really very easy.
Thank you very much for your time, Dr. Musquera.
The objective of the Rob Surgical Bitrack robot is to universalize precision surgery, offering benefits for surgeons, the hospital and patients, while minimizing costs to make it accessible in all types of centers.
