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