“Rudy” is a 200-pound robot which is currently part of a multihospital clinical trial to determine whether patients who have undergone surgery can be safely taken care of by a doctor in a different location.

Rudy’s first patient, 59-year-old Dennis Early, agreed to participate in the study before having his cancerous left kidney and ureter removed.

During Early four-day hospital stay, surgeon Lars Ellison visited him several times in the form of Rudy the Robot. In most cases, Ellison was operating Rudy with a joystick from his office, a few blocks from the hospital. Another remote workstation allows him to run Rudy from home.

Earlier trial of the robot at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore found that when the robot was added to usual postoperative care, patients felt they got better attention from their physicians.

Michael Chan, vice president of In-Touch Health, the company that builds the robot, envisions a time when emergency departments use robots to allow specialists to consult on emergency cases without having to race to the hospital. Dr. Ellison imagines using the robot to visit hospitalized patients when a busy clinic schedule makes rounds difficult or when he’s attending an out-of-town medical conference.

More details in Sacbee, via Robotics.