Skills training in telerobotic surgery.

Surgical robots have the potential to expand the repertoire of minimally invasive surgery resulting in more patients benefiting from lower operative morbidity and shorter hospital stays. However, in a similar manner to all new surgical interventions it necessary to explore the learning curves of practitioners as they adopt this new technology to enable optimisation of future training programs. Only when the standard of practice is firmly established, should the proliferation of robotic practitioners be encouraged thus ensuring patient safety is not compromised. Copyright 2005 Robotic Publications, Ltd.