Students' glimpse of the future

Four students from the Netherton school, who all have an interest in engineering, were invited to go to the CMR headquarters in Cambridge to see surgical robots first hand.

Whilst there, the students were allowed access to state of the art medical equipment, given access to surgical robotics and learned how keyhole surgery was performed by the robotics.

A spokesperson said that “the opportunity was really brilliant, and a good platform for students who have an interest in engineering”.

Cambridge Medical Robotics (CMR) recently announced that it had created the Versius surgical robotic system to perform minimally invasive abdominal surgery.

CMR’s mission is to make surgical robotics commonplace in every hospital by providing a cost-effective, flexible, next- generation solution capable of carrying out the vast majority of minimal access procedures. The company is rapidly progressing towards manufacturing scale up and market introduction.

Luke Hares, technology director of CMR, said: “As a child, I remember taking apart an old- fashioned typewriter and unwittingly became hooked on understanding how things work and how I could improve them. I’ve subsequently enjoyed a fascinating career doing just that.

“Hopefully, today’s visit has stimulated another group of young people to be curious enough to ask why something is the way it is, and passionate enough to want to improve on the status quo.”