`Black box` recorder puts surgeons` robotic surgery skills under the microscope
(PHYSorg.com Medicine & Health)

You may know that your surgeon is using the latest minimally invasive technology for your surgery, but how do you know if they`ve mastered it? To help answer that question, researchers at Keck Medicine of USC looked to a custom recording tool similar in concept to a flight recorder on an airplane. When attached to a robotic surgery system during radical prostatectomy procedures, the most common treatment for prostate cancer, the `black box` recorder captured data that could be used to discern the difference between novice and expert surgeons. The results of the study will appear in the January 2018 edition of The Journal of Urology.