Robot reinvents bypass surgery

CHICAGO -- The surgeon working inside J.C. Bizzle's chest perched at an egg-shaped console a few yards from the operating table. Without laying hands on his patient, he bypassed two clogged arteries supplying Bizzle's heart.

The University of Chicago's Sudhir Srivastava performed the surgery without a big incision, without splitting Bizzle's breastbone and without stopping his heart. The spider-like arms of a robot did most of the work.

Bizzle, 79, a retired crane operator, was discharged April 5, just three days after a double bypass that typically would land a patient in the hospital for a week or more. "I had very little pain," Bizzle says. "Before summer's end, I'm expecting to be out playing golf."

In a era when an increasing number of patients have been choosing balloon angioplasty to avoid the trauma of open-heart surgery, Srivastava is one of a ...