Dr. Syed Muhammad Ghose operated on a patient in Hyderabad, while he was in Wuhan, China, using robotics-assisted remote surgery.
The city of Hyderabad witnessed a medical miracle, as a woman underwent surgery performed by a doctor 3,900 kilometers away from her in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The rare but successful surgery was performed by Indian urologist Dr Syed Muhammad Ghose, a senior urologist at the Asian Institute of Nephrology and Urology Hyderabad (AINU) who was in Wuhan at the time.
The 57-year-old woman, who was diagnosed with ureteral obstruction, underwent a robotic-assisted remote surgery from Wuhan, and a video of the procedure was shared by news agency PTI.
Dr. Goss was in Wuhan at the time to attend a conference, but that did not prevent him from performing the surgery. A human assistant has been placed at the patient’s side in Hyderabad for effective communication and assistance in emergency situations. The surgery went smoothly and was over within 90 minutes, news agency PTI reported.
“It was basically a ureteral reimplantation that was considered for a patient who had developed a ureteral obstruction. What is a ureteral obstruction? It is a tube that connects the kidney to the urinary bladder, and this tube was blocked for this particular patient,” said Dr. Ghose, who is also the director of robotic and minimal access urology at AINU Hyderabad.
“This newly blocked tube was attached to the bladder which is known as ureteral reimplantation. So, we do this regularly in our operating room with the robot and the console next to the patient, but this extended to Wuhan, because I was called to a conference there, and there were 4-5 other surgeons, who performed telesurgery from there to their countries. I operated from there on this patient and it was successful. The patient went home.”
Previous attempts
This is not the first time that medicine and robotics have collided to open up the option of performing remote surgeries. Dr Mohit Bhandari, a leading metabolic bariatric surgeon in India, performed the world’s first transcontinental bariatric surgery from Strasbourg (France) to Indore in July 2025, PTI reported.
He spoke in favor of the advantage that robotic surgeries provide in diversifying access to healthcare across major cities to smaller towns and villages. “Robotic surgery is poised to revolutionize how advanced surgical care is delivered outside of major cities. Traditionally, cutting-edge procedures have been concentrated in tertiary urban centres, but three parallel transformations will lead to decentralisation,” Dr Bhandari said on the sidelines of the recently concluded 3rd edition of the World Congress on Robotic Surgery in Delhi from April 9 to 12.
Stuti Gupta is a content producer at Hindustan Times, based in New Delhi, where she is part of the general news team, tasked with reporting on events across the country that impact the local and international environment. In her role at HT, she is responsible for monitoring incoming news updates, packaging stories and publishing them in a format that best suits her purpose. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from St. Xavier’s, Mumbai, and is interested in working in international affairs. Aside from her interest in the geopolitical world, she is a reader, writer, speaker, debater, and learner who loves obtaining new information. She has been recognized for her previous literary work at an international level having won the Gold Prize, Gold Prize and Silver Prize in various years participating in the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition along with winning Third Prize and publishing her story in Children’s World in 2017. Except for academic and professional endeavours, she has a passion for traveling to new places, exploring new cultures and cuisines, documenting them through words and images and interacting with people from diverse backgrounds. She is also very passionate about studying and actively participating in art forms such as cinema, dance, theatre, and music as a tool for cultural storytelling.Read more
