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Hospitals use robots to push prostate surgeries
By Dr. William Campbell Douglass on 04/24/2011
Want to see a high-pressure sales pitch? Don't visit a car dealer... just visit a hospital with a prostate-chopping robot.
It slices... it dices... it brings in money like nobody's business -- and who cares if it performs operations no one actually needs?
A new study shows how hospitals that spend big on robots do more surgeries than ever before -- so many that they must be putting those machines to work overtime.
Good thing robots don't have unions!
Robo-plot!
Researchers tracked robot purchases at 554 hospitals and treatments given to 30,000 men between 2001 and 2005, and found that hospitals that buy the machines do 29 more surgeries in the first year alone -- a huge jump when you consider that many only did between 100 and 150 a year in the first place.
Meanwhile, hospitals that don't buy robots actually do five fewer surgeries in that same year.
It's not because they're losing business to robots -- surgeries were actually DOWN overall during the study period, according to the research in Medical Care.
It's because hospitals are pushing robo-surgery on any man with prostate cancer -- and you don't even have to walk through the door to hear the sales pitch.
In addition to the millions spent on the machines, hospitals with robots spend big on marketing campaigns that rival those of the car dealers I mentioned earlier: blaring radio ads and obnoxious TV commercials.
Some hospitals even bring their robots to shopping malls for passers-by to "oooh" and "aaaah" over.
But here's what you won't hear during that marketing blitz: There is zero evidence -- and I mean absolutely no evidence at all -- that men who are treated with robots have better outcomes.
And there's plenty of evidence that prostate surgeries -- done by humans and robots alike -- can lead to a nightmare battle with lasting and even permanent side effects, including incontinence and impotence.
It's the same story with most other cancer treatments, prostate and otherwise -- we treat more cancer "survivors" than ever before... but haven't changed the survival rate.
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William Campbell Douglass I.I., M.D. has been called "the conscience of modern medicine."
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Comments
Mercedes Lackey
This is one of those really misleading articles. It makes it seem as if all that the robots are doing is prostate surgery, when in fact MOST of the surgeries done by the Da Vinci system are HEART surgeries, things that used to be open-heart surgery where the patient got his chest cracked wide open. Now these surgeries are done via a tiny incision between the ribs. Not only is the outcome for these surgeries vastly better, the recovery time is cut to a third or less, getting the patient out of the hospital faster (often within a couple days) and cutting the time the patient is exposed to infection risk. SHAME on you. Don't lie to people by inference.
Boomer12k
It doesn't have to "improve the survival rate". It does not have to "have better outcomes". At least the survival rate is the same, and so are the outcomes. It means you can get the SAME RESULTS WITHOUT PAYING A SURGEON!!!!!! Thus saving the hospital MONEY!!! and TIME!!!!
My question would be DOES IT COST LESS WITH A ROBOT????? It should!!!!
Those side effects are the conditions left with having no prostate. That will never change, unless of course you make an artificial one to replace the one taken out.
So, what is it really all about? Mechanization of Hospitals, less workers, less technicians, less people involved. More money for the Hospital, less taxes, less benefits paid out. More money for the Hospital. Speed up the process, less time in a hospital bed, send in the next patient, more money for the hospital. I think there is a theme here.
With 50 million more people being dumped into the healthcare system through Obamacare, how are you going to service all these vehicles..er...um....I mean people??? Automate the system. If there are going to be fewer Doctors, and other practitioners, what is left to take care of all those people???
Welcome to the realities of the 21st Century.
One futurist said there will be nanites in our bloodsteam, monitoring everything!!!! And going around fixing everything, so we will never get sick or diseased or anything!!!! You Doctors and Hospitals will be out of WORK, no money! No need, because nanites will do everything!!!!! Automated!!!!
Automation has cost us JOBS and income. In the future, only people who own the machines will have the money, everybody else will be out of work. You can even, (right now), completely automate online manufacturing of your DVD. Costs less. Very few humans involved. Where as before you had offices and offices of workers, you now have computers and machines doing the work. That probably started with the automobile industry when they started using robots for some things. BUT IT TOOK SOMEONES JOB!!!! DOCTORS USE ROBOTS IN HOSPITALS TO VISIT PATIENTS, It saves walking all over the hospital, saving TIME!!!!!!!! No benefits to pay, no insurance, no overtime pay, no vactions,no UNIONS, NO STRIKES, no commissary for eating, so no food to buy, no extraneous workers to PAY. Automation has benefited us, but it has also RUINED US!!!! Supposed to give us LEISURE TIME. Well, how are you going to make a living with NO JOB???? How do you get money for the leisure time???? You still need a job, to get the money for the leisure time. So it is a CATCH 22!!!
Bottom line Doc? We have been SOLD a bill of goods by futurist writers, and their false unrealistic Utopian beliefs. I am sure you would prescribe WORK to someone not sleeping well, is over-weight, and at risk for Diabetes. Work and exercise is GOOD FOR US!!!!! Even if it is just working in the garden!!!! We are always going to need work. It helps motivate us. And yet we say we hate our job!
Humans are IDIOTS!!!!
Be well and happy, Doc....while you can....
Steve
mysay2011
Good article Dr Douglass. I am a great believer in, 'leave the prostate alone' theory anyway.
Anonymous
The point that Dr D is trying to get across is, the fact is that too many needlessly surgeries are being performed whether by a Dr or a robot it makes no difference, I am sure that the Dr will agree if and when a surgery is in need he will the first to advise, but one must be aware that this is how surgeons make their money, and hospitals using robots are no different they want your money even if they make a little mistake here and there. JAM
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