Samsung Medical Center Demonstrates Mock Surgery With Two Humanoid Robots and a Doctor

leaderobot.com reported that Samsung Medical Center demonstrated a humanoid surgical assistance system on September 16. Two robots and one doctor worked as a team to perform a mock cholecystectomy. According to the article, laboratory evaluations showed a 100% grasping success rate for five types of surgical instruments, a 98.7% handoff success rate, and a response that began within 2 seconds of voice commands.

The reported demonstration showed a surgical assistance setup in which separate robots handled instrument handoffs and held a laparoscope while working with a doctor. The laboratory success rates apply to limited conditions; safety and task performance in planned clinical trials will be important in assessing potential use in medical settings.

The focus of the demonstration was not to have robots perform surgery on their own, but to integrate two robots handling different tasks into a team with a doctor. The report described separate roles for the robot handling instruments and the one holding the laparoscope. The design can be viewed as dividing surgical assistance into individual tasks and coordinating them through voice commands from a human. However, the article describes a mock surgery, not results confirming effectiveness in clinical settings. The reported evaluation figures also have limits. The 100% grasping success rate and 98.7% handoff success rate were reported for laboratory evaluations involving five types of instruments. They cannot be taken to mean that the same performance would apply to all surgical instruments or actual surgical environments, regardless of the instruments or test conditions. The report that the robots began responding within 2 seconds of voice commands measures the time to begin responding; it does not indicate how long an instrument handoff took to complete or how much the robots improved the efficiency of an entire operation. The robots used wheeled bases rather than bipedal ones. The report cited the need for the support and stability required for precision work. This offers an example of a design choice that prioritizes stability during tasks over mobility for medical applications. However, the article does not specify the demonstration robots' control methods, safety mechanisms or conditions for doctor intervention. More information is needed to assess the system's configuration and evaluation conditions. The report also described a plan spanning about 54 months, about 13.8 billion won in government research and development funding, and clinical trials scheduled to begin at four hospitals in 2029. As the work moves from laboratory task metrics to clinical evaluation, key questions will include how to assess not only instrument handoff accuracy but also responses to interruptions and errors during surgery and coordination with medical staff. The article does not establish whether the reported plans will be carried out or which metrics the clinical trials will examine.