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The stress for surgeons: exploring stress entities with the robotic senhance surgical system

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Abstract

Robotic surgery is on its way to revolutionizing traditional surgical procedures, offering precise and minimally invasive techniques hypothesized to shorten recovery times and improve patient outcomes. While there have been multiple publications on robotic systems’ medical and procedural achievements, more emphasis should be put on the surgeon’s experience, especially in comparison with laparoscopic surgery. The present report aims to systematically examine the stress impact on surgeons by comparing the robotic Senhance Surgical System (Asensus Surgical, Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A) to laparoscopic surgery. The well-established “SURG-TLX” survey is used to measure distinct stress entities. The “SURG-TLX” survey is a modified version of the NASA-TLX, validated for surgery by M. Willson. Based on a comprehensive database from six centers encompassing various disciplines and surgical procedures, our analysis indicates significantly reduced “overall stress” levels for robotic (cockpit) compared to laparoscopic surgeons. Exploring the “SURG-TLX” stress dimensions further between methods (robotic vs. laparoscopic) and surgeon position (laparoscopic, (robotic) bedside, or (robotic) cockpit) resulted in significantly more Mental (p.value < 0.015), less Physical Demands (p.value < 0.001) and less Distraction (p.value < 0.009) for robotic surgery, especially regarding the robotic cockpit surgeons. This finding suggests that robotic surgery with the Senhance Surgical System contributes to a favorable stress profile for surgeons, potentially enhancing their overall well-being and performance.

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Data availability

The data used in this research is available upon request. No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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Acknowledgements

We want to acknowledge the support of our industry partner, Asensus Surgical US, in providing logistics for the data collection and analysis presented here.

Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Evangelisches Hospital Wesel, Wesel, Germany

    Vivianda Menke & Olaf Hansen

  2. Department of Surgery, Hospital Landshut-Achdorf, Landshut, Germany

    Johannes Schmidt & Georg Dechantsreiter

  3. Department of General and Visceral Surgery, Hospital Esslingen, Esslingen, Germany

    Ludger Staib, Mukhammad Davliatov, Florian Schilcher & Bodo Hübner

  4. Department of Surgery, General, Minimally Invasive & Robotic Surgery, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Francesco Bianco

  5. Department of Urology, University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia

    Zeljko Kastelan, Tomislav Kulis, Tvrtko Hudolin, Luka Penezic, Toni Zekulic, Jerko Andelic, Ilija Juric & Ivan Puda

  6. Department of Surgery, Urology and Gynaecology, Klaipeda University Hospital, Klaipeda, Lithuania

    Raimondas Siaulys, Raimundas Venckus, Marius Jasenus, Vitalijus Eismontas & Narimantas Evaldas Samalavicius

Authors
  1. Vivianda Menke
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  2. Olaf Hansen
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  3. Johannes Schmidt
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  22. Narimantas Evaldas Samalavicius
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Contributions

All authors, performed surgery and filled out the Surg TLX questionnaire after surgery, either robotic or laparoscopic. V. M. wrote the main manuscript text. The analysis was performed by the senior statiscian, CRO Dr Tanja Kottmann, who is not in the author list, nor in the acknowledgements, since she works for the industry partner Asensus. The figures are made by V.M., with the help of Dr. Tanja Kottmann. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vivianda Menke.

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Menke, V., Hansen, O., Schmidt, J. et al. The stress for surgeons: exploring stress entities with the robotic senhance surgical system. J Robotic Surg 18, 94 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11701-024-01853-6

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