Humanoid Robots Just Performed Surgery Using Standard Medical Tools

It’s a fact. Specialist surgeons who tackle rare and frequently challenging operations report some of the highest burnout rates among physicians, according to the American Medical Association. You can imagine why: emergency globetrotting, difficult high-stakes work even when the patient comes to you, and all the usual miseries America’s for-profit healthcare system has foisted upon its medical professionals. But a team of engineers and surgeons at the University of California, San Diego, just recently reported two successful pre-clinical trials that might help. Humanoid robots designed in collaboration with UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering performed two proof-of-concept surgeries using the typical, handheld surgical tools intended for human doctors. While plenty of remote surgeries have already deployed custom-made robotic arms (even in space), UC San Diego’s team noted that its trials were the first to incorporate android-like automatons capable of handling these surgical instruments just like a flesh-and-blood doctor. In one trial, UC San Diego’s robot surgeon worked with a human assistant to carefully remove the gallbladder of a living test animal (a pig) with a licen

Jul 14, 2026 → Jul 14, 2026