1. Operating Rooms with No People

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1. Operating Rooms with No People

Satava was the surgeon on the team that developed the first surgical robot. He says it's actually been possible for years to have an operating room with no people in it, only the patient.

Robots would not only operate but dispense materials and grab new tools.

Satava says the Defense Department was interested in such a concept for a simple reason: "What would happen if a soldier is wounded on the battlefield away from medical facilities?"

Check out this concept video of what might happen for a wounded soldier in the future:

That video--it was from 1995, according to Satava.

"When we developed this concept video in 1995, everything you see in that video was available to us in industry, we didn't have to invent a single thing," Satava said. "It was a matter of systems integration."

Satava helped with research that showed it could be done. 

"Now this is on the shelf collecting dust, but the concept is valid. And whether or not we do it is no longer a technical issue, but it rather one of, 'Do we want to really do this? Is it going to be cost effective? Are we going to have a market for it?'" Satava said.

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