Technological advances have enabled the development of new methods of communication such as tele-learning and "telecollaboration." The Computer Motion company (CM) has launched the Socrates Telecollaborative System that enables a surgeon performing an operation to cooperate with a consultant. A number of operations have been performed so far with the use of this system, including a mitral valve procedure and a bypass procedure in London, Ontario. The image from the AESOP system was relayed to a location 15 miles away. The first remote transmission of an image from an operating room took place decades ago (De Bakey, Blue Bird satellite), but it is only now that "telecollaboration" in surgery has become a reality.

Tele-surgery is scoring its first successes. A telesurgical system developed by the CMI company was used to perform the Lindbergh Operation, in which signals controlling the robot were sent over a distance of 7,000 kilometers from New York to a hospital in Strasbourg, France. The physicians using a ZEUS robot removed the gallbladder of a 68-year-old female patient. The time lag of the undersea fiber-optic cable through which the signals were sent did not exceed 155 ms-for safety reasons it must not exceed 200 ms. Another operation, this time for prostate cancer, was performed in Berlin in 2002. However, surgeons insist that, although some successful procedures have been performed, strong development and involvement of many research teams are needed to make sure that the use of surgical robots moves from infancy to maturity, and that they can be widely used in a full range of clinical applications.