Cawich Shamir O, Arulampalam Tan, Senasi Ramdas, Naraynsingh Vijay
Surgery, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, TTO.
School of Medicine, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, GBR.
Cureus. 2021 Oct 13;13(10):e18739. doi: 10.7759/cureus.18739. eCollection 2021 Oct.
Although advanced minimally invasive surgery and robotic surgery were well accepted in developed countries by the turn of the 21st century, they did not enjoy the same popularity in the Anglophone Caribbean. Advanced minimally invasive surgery only became available in select Caribbean countries from the year 2010. And up to the year 2021, robotic surgery was completely non-existent in the Anglophone Caribbean. Surgical leaders in the Anglophone Caribbean recognized a need to encourage the introduction of advanced surgical techniques in the region and engaged local and international stakeholders in an attempt to stimulate this development. In the year 2021, through a collaborative effort by a local medical university, a government-funded hospital, and industry partners in the United Kingdom, robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery was successfully introduced to the Caribbean. We report our experience of introducing robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery in the Eastern Caribbean. By discussing the pitfalls and successes from our experience, we hope that the lessons can be used to guide the introduction of robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery in other resource-poor countries in the Caribbean..
尽管到21世纪之交，先进的微创手术和机器人手术在发达国家已被广泛接受，但在加勒比英语地区却并未受到同样的欢迎。先进的微创手术直到2010年才在部分加勒比国家出现。截至2021年，机器人手术在加勒比英语地区完全不存在。加勒比英语地区的外科领军人物认识到有必要在该地区鼓励引入先进的手术技术，并与当地和国际利益相关者合作，试图推动这一发展。2021年，通过当地一所医科大学、一家政府资助的医院以及英国行业合作伙伴的共同努力，机器人辅助微创手术成功引入加勒比地区。我们报告了在东加勒比地区引入机器人辅助微创手术的经验。通过讨论我们经验中的陷阱和成功之处，我们希望这些经验教训可用于指导在加勒比地区其他资源匮乏国家引入机器人辅助微创手术。
