Surgical robots won FDA approval in 2000, and there are now 1,395 of them in 860 hospitals worldwide, performing more than 200,000 operations a year. At South Miami Hospital, 19 surgeons are on track to perform more than 1,000 robotic surgeries this year. Since its program began in 2007, hospital executives say it has become one of the world's busiest centers for surgeries using the robots. The officials say the hospital ranks fifth in the combined total of gynecologic, prostate, thoracic, bariatric, colorectal, and heart surgeries performed with robots, the Miami Herald reports.
