[citation needed][4] The first true and complete remote surgery was conducted on 7 September 2001 across the Atlantic Ocean, with a French surgeon (Dr. Jacques Marescaux) in New York City performing a cholecystectomy on a 68-year-old female patient 6,230 km away in Strasbourg, France.
While operation Lindbergh used the most expensive ATM fiber optics communication to ensure reliability and success of the first telesurgery, the follow on procedures in Canada used standard public internet which was provisioned with QOS using MPLS QOS-MPLS.
A series of complex laparoscopic procedures were performed where in this case, the expert clinician would support the surgeon who was less experienced, operating on his patient.
With continuing advances in communication technologies, the availability of greater bandwidth and more powerful computers, the ease and cost-effectiveness of deploying remote surgery units is likely to increase rapidly.
The armed forces have an obvious interest since the combination of telepresence, teleoperation, and telerobotics can potentially save the lives of battle casualties by providing them with prompt attention in mobile operating theatres.
A Florida hospital successfully tested lag time created by the Internet for a simulated robotic surgery in Ft. Worth, Texas, more than 1,200 miles away from the surgeon who was at the virtual controls.
Roger Smith, CTO at the Florida Hospital Nicholson Center said that the team had concluded that, telesurgery is something that is possible and generally safe for large areas within the United States.
[9][10] As the techniques of expert surgeons are studied and stored in special computer systems, robots might one day be able to perform surgeries with little or no human input.
This could one day make expensive, complicated surgeries much more widely available, even to patients in regions which have traditionally lacked proper medical facilities.
In robotic surgery, surgeons need to be able to perceive the amount of force being applied without directly touching the surgical tools.
Haptic technology in telesurgery, making a virtual image of a patient or incision, would allow a surgeon to see what they are working on as well as feel it.
This system is intended to aid wounded soldiers in the battlefield by making use of the skills of remotely located medical personnel.
Nevertheless, Operation Lindbergh proved that the technology exists today to enable delivery of expert care to remote areas of the globe.