By
Tim Culverhouse
June 20, 2025
Florida Hospital Photography Team (used with permission via Wikimedia Commons)
Dr. Vipul Patel performed the first telesurgery in Africa's history, conducting a radical prostatectomy on a man in Angola from an operating room in Orlando, Fla.
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Florida Hospital Photography Team (used with permission via Wikimedia Commons)
Dr. Vipul Patel performed the first telesurgery in Africa's history, conducting a radical prostatectomy on a man in Angola from an operating room in Orlando, Fla.
From the Global Robotic Institute at Advent Health in Orlando, Fla., Dr. Vipul Patel operated on a 67-year-old Angolan man with prostate cancer over 7,000 miles away.
Dr. Patel performed a radical prostatectomy on his patient in Angola as part of a human clinical trial approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to test transcontinental robotic telesurgery.
The surgery was a success, and marked the first robotic telesurgery performed in Africa.
Dr. Patel serves as the executive director of the Society of Robotic Surgery (SRS), a society comprised of doctors from around the world to tackle “the fundamental principles of education and collaboration as a means to tackle the complex issues of robotic surgery.”
Following the procedure, Dr. Patel told ABC News how his team worked on both continents to develop fail-safe plans in the operating room.
"We made sure we had plan A, B, C and D. I always have my team where the patient is," Patel told ABC News. "So, in case something happened with the telecommunications, the team would just take over and finish the case and do it safely."
Dr. Patel’s team was with the patient, Fernando da Silva, at the Cardeal Dom Alexadre do Nascimento Hospital Complex in Luganda, Angola. da Silva received a prostate cancer diagnosis in March 2025, and received the treatment less than three months later.
According to the medical team via the Angolan news website Ver Angola, “the patient is stable and recovering post-operatively, under specialist monitoring in the recovery room.”
Dr. Patel said that he hopes the successful procedure will open more robotic telesurgery options around the world, and he plans to submit the data to the FDA for review and consideration for more telesurgeries in the future.
"It was a small step for a surgeon, but it was huge leap for health care," Dr. Patel told ABC News.
Tim is the Editorial Director of Robotics247.com. His mission is to provide valuable information and insights to robotics professionals and decision-makers, and to help them solve business challenges. He is a creative, deadline-driven, and detail-oriented storyteller. In addition, he is a sports broadcaster and public address announcer.
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