eli5 why is a surgical robot better than a surgeon

Question

If the robot arms are only doing what the surgeon moves them to do, why is robotic surgery better and safer than the surgeon doing it himself

In: 4

Answer 1

Basically robots have tiny hands. And the hands aren’t hands but specific medical instruments. Incisions can be made smaller, and large hand movements translated into smaller instrument movements allow for more precise use of those instruments.

In particular with a laparoscopic surgery you can pass the little arms through tubes in small incisions to get to a work area deep in the body, instead of having to make a larger cut and move different organ bits out of the way to clear a work area.