BELARUSTV — broadcast
20260920 141000 UTC
385 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
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Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:02:05] nothing impossible if you set some
[00:02:09] goals for yourself, and we have a whole team setting these goals,
[00:02:13] then we will definitely
[00:02:13] achieve them,
[00:02:18] and we will bring a giraffe, and
[00:02:21] a hippopotamus, and someone else.
[00:03:01] Several punctures measuring a couple of millimeters,
[00:03:05] a camera seeing more than human eyes and
[00:03:09] robot hands that do not shake, do not get tired help
[00:03:12] doctors act with jeweler precision, even with
[00:03:16] complex diagnoses. All this is modern
[00:03:19] surgery, more precisely, one of its directions, minimally
[00:03:23] invasive surgery, popularly known as gentle. We will try
[00:03:27] to understand this topic in
[00:03:30] the next half hour. My name is Ekaterina Beretskaya,
[00:03:33] hello. Watch today in
[00:03:36] the program: from barbers with razors to
[00:03:40] the da Vinci robot, how surgery has changed over
[00:03:43] the centuries, I will tell you in the history
[00:03:46] of the issue. Gentle alternative,
[00:03:49] indications and advantages of minimally invasive
[00:03:52] surgery, we will discuss with specialists
[00:03:55] and the robot in the operating room, let's see what
[00:03:58] the machine is capable of.
[00:04:05] For a long time, surgery remained a very risky method of
[00:04:08] treatment. When exactly did the situation change, who
[00:04:12] contributed to this, I will tell you right
[00:04:16] now.
[00:04:24] The first surgical operations were carried out in ancient
[00:04:27] Egypt. Doctors opened boils, corrected fractures and
[00:04:31] even performed trepanation of the skull using
[00:04:34] stone and bronze instruments. In the ancient
[00:04:37] world, there were their own medical methods, operations were performed
[00:04:41] even for cataract and hernia removal. After the fall
[00:04:45] of Rome, surgery for a long time was not considered a science, but
[00:04:48] a craft, and the right to operate for a century
[00:04:52] passed to barbers. But even if operations were performed by
[00:04:56] more or less trained practitioners, until the 19th
[00:04:59] century it was
[00:05:01] a survival test. Anesthesia was first applied only in
[00:05:04] 1846, antiseptic a year
[00:05:08] later. At the beginning of the 19th century, a German doctor, Philipp.
[00:05:16] a tube with a candle and mirrors for examining
[00:05:18] organs. In 1901, a German
[00:05:22] doctor named Kelling inserted a tube with optics
[00:05:25] and air through a puncture in a dog's abdomen. And in
[00:05:29] 1910 the Swede Hans
[00:05:32] Jacobaeus performed a similar procedure for
[00:05:36] the first time on a human. He essentially performed the first
[00:05:39] laparoscopy. In 1980.
[00:05:45] used the method not for examination, he removed the appendix
[00:05:49] using this method. At the end of the century, the method began
[00:05:53] to spread throughout the world as a minimally invasive alternative
[00:05:57] to open manipulations. In parallel, in
[00:05:59] the USA, the idea of remote
[00:06:02] surgery originated. The development was financed by the army
[00:06:05] department, doctors dreamed of operating on the wounded
[00:06:08] right on the battlefield. In 1990.
[00:06:12] research at Stanford Institute led to the creation
[00:06:16] of the first surgical robot, which became
[00:06:19] the prototype of the da Vinci system released 9 years
[00:06:22] later, named after the famous inventor. In
[00:06:26] the early 2000s, the system was approved for use in
[00:06:29] gynecology, urology, cardiac surgery and
[00:06:32] oncologic surgery. In Belarus, laparoscopic operations
[00:06:36] began to be performed in the nineties of the last century,
[00:06:39] so today no one will be surprised by them. But
[00:06:43] a robot in the operating room can still surprise
[00:06:46] you. The first robotic surgical complex in our
[00:06:49] country appeared in the Minsk Scientific and Practical
[00:06:53] Center for Surgery, Transplantology and
[00:06:55] Hematology. Today, smart machines
[00:06:58] already work in the operating rooms of several clinics
[00:07:01] in the country.
[00:07:09] Technology promises accuracy and efficiency, but... what is
[00:07:13] it like to trust a machine and share responsibility for
[00:07:16] the result? To help us understand is urologist of the highest
[00:07:19] qualification category of the Minsk Scientific and Practical
[00:07:23] Center for Surgery, Transplantology and Hematology, Sergey
[00:07:26] Lyubetsky. Sergey Alexandrovich, hello. Hello. Well,
[00:07:30] let's start with the conceptual. What are
[00:07:32] the main advantages of minimally invasive
[00:07:35] surgery? Well, in fact, the main advantages
[00:07:39] are already hidden in the name itself.
[00:08:13] Its treatment endoscopically, minimally
[00:08:16] invasively, but it should be noted that this can only be done
[00:08:19] in the initial manifestations of the disease; in severe
[00:08:22] advanced cases, of course, it is not always possible to apply certain
[00:08:26] minimally invasive methods. Contraindications still
[00:08:30] exist, despite the fact that medicine is not
[00:08:33] standing still and is developing,
[00:08:35] but there are conditions of the
[00:08:38] cardiovascular system
[00:08:41] or... when the patient has serious respiratory
[00:08:45] system pathology, when it is impossible to perform complex anesthesia for
[00:08:48] surgery, and it should be taken into account that during
[00:08:51] laparoscopic or robotic surgery, the patient
[00:08:55] needs to have a large amount of carbon
[00:08:58] dioxide pumped into the abdominal cavity, which also has its
[00:09:01] negative effect and has its contraindications. Also,
[00:09:05] there are situations when the patient previously had
[00:09:09] repeated open surgical intervention... Therefore,
[00:09:22] in each situation, for each specific individual
[00:09:25] patient, the decision is made strictly
[00:09:28] individually. And how is the development
[00:09:31] of minimally invasive and robotic
[00:09:33] methods in surgery
[00:09:37] related to transplantology? Well, as is known, our center
[00:09:40] is a leading center
[00:09:42] in this field, in the field of transplantation and the introduction
[00:09:46] of minimally invasive technologies, of course,
[00:09:50] has also affected this area, and also
[00:09:52] performing laparoscopic organ retrieval, for example,
[00:09:56] a kidney from a living donor, allows the patient to recover
[00:09:59] faster and undergo
[00:10:02] this operation with minimal health costs for the body,
[00:10:05] including
[00:10:09] - our deputy director, Kolaychik Oleg -
[00:10:55] so that nothing happens during the operation, suddenly
[00:10:58] the robot doesn't break down, but of course we talk to the patients before the operation,
[00:11:02] explain everything to them, we explain to them
[00:11:05] that the robot does not operate, it's still the
[00:11:08] surgeon who operates, and the robot is
[00:11:11] just a high-tech machine, an instrument in the hands
[00:11:14] of an experienced surgeon, well, surely
[00:11:17] there aren't that many robotic systems in
[00:11:20] the world, right? But your center
[00:11:23] chose a specific one, right? Why
[00:11:27] were certain characteristics particularly taken into account, well,
[00:11:30] surely it was chosen based on what was needed
[00:11:34] specifically for your operations? Yes,
[00:11:37] of course, the choice fell on a robotic complex
[00:11:40] from a Chinese manufacturer,
[00:11:43] Medbot. This unit
[00:11:46] is characterized by the fact that it was originally designed
[00:11:49] to work in very narrow
[00:11:52] spaces, well...
[00:11:56] the manufacturer, among other things, provided us with such expanded
[00:11:59] technical support and training
[00:12:03] for specialists who work in the simulation center in China,
[00:12:07] so all the doctors who work
[00:12:10] on this unit, on this complex, we underwent
[00:12:14] training in a clinic in China in a simulation
[00:12:18] center, where we honed our skills before
[00:12:21] proceeding to the operating table, well on this...
[00:12:25] complex can
[00:12:27] a certain range of surgical interventions
[00:12:31] be performed or can
[00:12:33] it do everything? Well,
[00:12:36] in principle, this complex can cover all the
[00:12:39] pathology that we used to operate on openly, then we switched to
[00:12:43] laparoscopic operations, and now the robot allows us
[00:12:47] to do this, let's say, with better
[00:12:50] results. If
[00:12:53] we imagine what a scope is, we need to imagine
[00:12:57] a task before us, right, that, for example, we need to repair some complex mechanism
[00:13:00] inside a closed room, right, and we need to do all this through some
[00:13:04] keyhole, that's roughly what laparoscopy is, through
[00:13:07] small punctures ports are inserted into the human
[00:13:10] body, a laparoscope is inserted
[00:13:14] into one of them, it's a tube
[00:13:17] that has a camera at the end, a light source
[00:13:20] and the image is transmitted to the screen in the operating room, and through
[00:13:23] the other ports...
[00:13:26] instruments are placed into the patient, with which the surgeon
[00:13:29] operates, while controlling what he is doing on
[00:13:32] the screen. The robotic
[00:13:36] system in this regard has a few more
[00:13:39] additional functions, because laparoscopic instruments have
[00:13:42] a rigid axis,
[00:13:45] and a robotic instrument differs from a laparoscopic one in that it has 7
[00:13:49] degrees of freedom, and it actually repeats all the movements
[00:13:52] in the hand of the operating surgeon. I suggest
[00:13:55] we add some clarity to our conversation, my
[00:13:58] colleagues went, in fact, to your work to see the robot surgeon
[00:14:02] with their own eyes.
[00:14:15] Entrusting patients' lives to a machine is not an easy decision.
[00:14:19] It is not surprising that Belarusian doctors carefully considered robotic
[00:14:22] surgery, weighing all the pros and cons carefully.
[00:14:55] The practice of the Minsk Scientific and Practical Center for Surgery,
[00:14:58] Transplantology and Hematology, which was the first to acquire one of
[00:15:02] the best devices on the market, dispelled many doubts. The result was not
[00:15:05] long in coming. In just over six months, we have already performed about 200 such
[00:15:09] operations. The fields are
[00:15:11] diverse. It is generally recognized that the robot gives the greatest
[00:15:15] advantage in urology when performing
[00:15:18] urological operations, where it has already almost
[00:15:21] completely replaced laparoscopy. And the second
[00:15:25] thing is what is called surgery in hard-to-reach
[00:15:28] places, this is primarily the small pelvis,
[00:15:32] this is what is performed on the rectum and large intestine, and
[00:15:35] these are those operations that gynecologists
[00:15:38] perform. The next very important advantage
[00:15:41] of the robot are high-tech complex operations
[00:15:44] on the liver and pancreas. This is
[00:15:47] the specialization of our center. The complex consists of three parts:
[00:15:51] the surgeon's console, the doctor's workstation with joysticks, foot
[00:15:54] pedals and a 3D display. The unit with mechanical arms.
[00:15:58] It directly works with the patient. And the visualization
[00:16:02] unit that transmits images with 10x magnification. In
[00:16:05] laparoscopy, the surgeon is limited in
[00:16:09] the ability to perform movements due to
[00:16:12] physiological limitations in the joints of human hands,
[00:16:16] wrists, elbows. The robotic manipulator, it largely
[00:16:20] repeats the movement
[00:16:23] of human hands and arm joints, only with
[00:16:26] greater degrees of freedom or with
[00:16:29] greater capabilities of rotation in different
[00:16:32] planes. Thus, the robot truly
[00:16:35] provides a lot of...
[00:16:38] well, additional capabilities, but the robot itself does not
[00:16:41] perform any actions, full control is ensured by the doctor. All
[00:16:45] movements are performed on the patient only when the surgeon
[00:16:47] looks at
[00:16:50] the console screen, just as I am doing it now, there are
[00:16:54] sensors here that allow movements to be performed
[00:16:57] only when the eyes are looking at
[00:17:00] the screen, at this monitor. As soon as the head
[00:17:04] moves away, I will move the manipulators out of the area
[00:17:06] of interest. So that they are, for example, in the abdominal
[00:17:09] cavity suspended, at this time I move my
[00:17:13] head away from the screen and they will not be able to move,
[00:17:17] that's it, they are fixed, they won't touch anything by themselves.
[00:17:20] Force majeure is provided for. If the electricity goes out during the operation,
[00:17:23] the complex will switch to an uninterruptible
[00:17:26] power source and finish the operation in normal mode. Also,
[00:17:30] during the operation, a team of specialists, a surgeon's assistant and an operating
[00:17:33] nurse, are always near the robot. All to... avoid
[00:18:13] open surgery - this is also one of the important advantages of robotic
[00:18:17] surgery, because open surgery
[00:18:20] is accompanied by other trauma, worse
[00:18:23] tolerance, a different profile
[00:18:26] of surgical risk, that is, everything that is performed laparoscopically or
[00:18:30] robotically, that is, minimally invasively, is tolerated
[00:18:33] more easily by patients with fewer complications.
[00:18:37] And yet, the center emphasizes: no matter how perfect the technique,
[00:18:40] the result of the operation is determined by the human. They do not in any way, as of
[00:18:44] today, as long as they don't have artificial intelligence, replace
[00:18:48] the surgeon, and
[00:18:51] the success of the operation does not depend on
[00:18:53] the robot, it depends on how well
[00:18:57] a particular surgeon masters the technique
[00:19:00] of this operation, and masters this
[00:19:03] robot, how skillful he is, how well he can operate this robot.
[00:20:09] small plant, in the next stage, we make five more
[00:20:13] plants. Attention again, this is our inclusive
[00:20:16] project, we participate in many different charity events, generally,
[00:20:20] yes, and this project also became such a highlight for our
[00:20:24] building, that is, it was important
[00:20:25] for us.
[00:22:14] Surgical intervention online, reality
[00:22:18] or fantasy.
[00:22:21] And a special report from the program Science Festival
[00:22:24] 2026, how it was,
[00:22:27] we will show.
[00:22:32] We are back in the studio, and our guest is a doctor of the highest qualification
[00:22:36] category from the Minsk Scientific and Practical Center
[00:22:38] for Surgery, Transplantology, and Hematology, Sergey Lyubetsky. Sergey
[00:22:42] Alexandrovich, let's continue. We talked about patients,
[00:22:45] let's talk about you, the doctors.
[00:22:49] Here's a psychologist.
[00:23:20] As for emotional stress, yes,
[00:23:23] mental, after all, during robotic operations, it
[00:23:26] is higher,
[00:23:30] and this is due to the fact that these technologies are
[00:23:33] slightly different. When performing laparoscopic operations
[00:23:37] or open operations, there is tactile sensitivity, that
[00:23:40] is, the surgeon feels tissues with his hands, feels
[00:23:43] the tension of the thread, and so on. When the surgeon
[00:23:47] operates on a robotic system, he controls...
[00:23:51] and joysticks do not transmit that tactile
[00:23:54] sensitivity,
[00:23:56] everything that the doctor assesses with his hands at the operating
[00:24:00] table, he must assess visually,
[00:24:03] according to the parameters, probably, that the machine gives out, of course,
[00:24:07] and this requires such a very serious psycho-emotional
[00:24:11] stress and concentration of attention in the first
[00:24:14] place. On the other hand, physical stress,
[00:24:17] fatigue, it is, of course, less on the robotic
[00:24:20] system, because when an operation is performed
[00:24:24] at the table, right, the surgeon
[00:24:26] can be in some static, uncomfortable
[00:24:30] position for himself for a very long
[00:24:32] time, and as a rule, his hands,
[00:24:35] neck,
[00:24:38] everything gets stiff, right, it's impossible to stand for so
[00:24:40] long. On the other hand, when working
[00:24:44] robotically, the surgeon is in a
[00:24:47] comfortable ergonomic
[00:24:51] chair during the operation,
[00:24:54] which, of course, reduces physical fatigue after such operations. And
[00:24:57] let's talk about another phenomenon, such as
[00:25:01] surgical interventions at a distance,
[00:25:04] remotely. This is also a reality
[00:25:08] today, because once it
[00:25:11] was just fantasy. How does
[00:25:13] this happen? Well, at the moment it's an absolute
[00:25:17] reality. And our complex also
[00:25:20] has 5G modules that transmit
[00:25:24] a signal over long distances with minimal delay, and
[00:25:28] the delay is literally fractions of a millisecond, which are practically
[00:25:31] imperceptible to the human eye.
[00:25:35] This technology allows operations to be performed at
[00:25:38] a distance. The first such operations have already been carried out
[00:25:42] in our center, including, when
[00:25:45] the surgeon was here with us in Minsk, and the patient who
[00:25:49] was operated on...
[00:26:04] that in the future, the surgeon will not need to travel somewhere to perform
[00:26:07] a complex operation. It will be enough to sit at the console here in
[00:26:11] Minsk. Well, since we started talking about
[00:26:14] the future of surgery, here's
[00:26:16] a philosophical question for
[00:26:18] you, what will it be like?
[00:26:22] Well, I think that the human
[00:26:25] element in the operating room will always be there,
[00:26:29] without human intelligence, it's probably impossible.
[00:26:34] The only thing that will probably change is that the surgeon, from such
[00:26:37] a craftsman working with his hands, will already turn more into
[00:26:41] a mentor who will control the work of some
[00:26:44] artificial systems. Well, in my opinion, the
[00:26:48] decision,
[00:26:51] the difficult decision-making, will depend on
[00:26:54] the person, how to proceed in case
[00:26:57] of complications, for example, or with some
[00:27:01] peculiarity, a small structure.
[00:27:05] Most likely, the operating room of the future is such
[00:27:08] a kind of symbiosis of man and
[00:27:11] the precision of machines. Well, then, let's see what
[00:27:15] it will look like in 15 years, at least. Thank you very much
[00:27:19] for finding the time and coming to us and
[00:27:22] telling us, it was very, very interesting, thank you,
[00:27:25] thank you. And we continue, my young colleague
[00:27:28] Potap Matskevich went to the annual
[00:27:31] science festival in the Minsk Botanical Garden
[00:27:35] and was able to try himself, including as a
[00:27:38] medic. What he learned, we will find out right
[00:27:41] now.
[00:27:49] Become a biologist, chemist, and even a medic for one day? What
[00:27:53] a great opportunity to feel what it's like to save lives,
[00:27:56] make a new discovery, I went to the Minsk Botanical Garden.
[00:28:00] Science is just booming here, the festival has only just begun... and there's already so
[00:28:03] much interesting stuff, well, let's go figure it out.
[00:28:07] Let's imagine a situation: a person is choking in front of you. What
[00:28:10] to do? We approach him exclusively from the side, spread
[00:28:13] his legs, put our one leg in, then
[00:28:17] lean him over and with pushing
[00:28:21] movements do it five times, 1, 2,
[00:28:24] 3, 4, 5.
[00:28:27] We looked, but the food didn't come out,
[00:28:30] so we find the navel.
[00:28:33] Two fingers above, we make a fist and
[00:28:35] a hand. That's it,
[00:28:39] the foreign body that created the obstruction in our respiratory tract
[00:28:42] is removed. I try to apply the theory in
[00:28:44] practice. Young man, are you
[00:28:47] not feeling well?
[00:28:56] That's it, I helped. Good job, you provided
[00:29:00] assistance. It happens. Another situation: a person
[00:29:04] is unconscious, the ambulance has been called, but there's no time to wait,
[00:29:07] every second counts. It's necessary to immediately perform cardiopulmonary
[00:29:11] resuscitation. You have a bone here, the sternum, you can
[00:29:15] feel it, reach the edge of the bone, place
[00:29:18] two fingers, put your hands down, put your hands
[00:29:22] like this or like this, the main thing is to do it with straight arms, because
[00:29:26] often people bend their elbows and it turns out
[00:29:29] they work like this. If you work like this, then... you'll get tired
[00:29:32] very quickly. I try, hands in place, my task is to do 30 compressions and
[00:29:36] two breaths, and so on in a loop until the ambulance
[00:29:39] arrives.
[00:29:46] A few simple actions give a person a chance to wait
[00:29:49] for doctors. Thanks for the useful master class, and I'm going
[00:29:52] on.
[00:29:55] Hello, hello, I see you have many different interesting
[00:29:58] colored test tubes here, can you tell me what they are for? We have a mini-laboratory
[00:30:02] here, we teach people to use automatic
[00:30:06] dispensers, we use such dispensers in laboratories, they
[00:30:09] are necessary to measure the right amount of liquid, can
[00:30:13] I try? Yes, let's try. For the dispenser
[00:30:16] to work, put on the tip, immerse it in the liquid,
[00:30:19] done, the solution is inside, now transfer it to the desired test tube
[00:30:23] according to the same scheme, lower it, press the
[00:30:26] button all the way down, to the second stop. This is how
[00:30:29] scientists conduct analyzes and take the first steps in
[00:30:33] creating new medicines, and such dispensers are also used to measure solutions for
[00:30:36] droppers and drugs for anesthesia, here accuracy is