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Robotic surgery

Can robots be as good as humans in carrying out surgery?

Retired music teacher, Stephen Pettit needed a heart operation which had a 98-99% chance of succeeding if it was carried out by human hands. Instead it was carried out by a robot and Mr Pettit died. It has raised questions about the growing reliance on robotic surgery, so can machines be relied on to operate on people?

(Image: Removing kidney with the da Vinci robot, credit: Getty Images)

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12 minutes

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