SuperDoctors

BBC 1 at 9:00pm (Other show times...)

Life-and-death decisions are everyday events on the edge of medicine. This new, three-part series, presented by Professor Robert Winston, explores new medical frontiers.

Throughout the series, Professor Winston meets the doctors and scientists working on the cutting edge - as well as the patients brave enough to put themselves, and their lives, on the line. He provides the bridge between doctor and patient, and hears the stories each would never tell the other.

The series shows not the glossy headlines, but the reality of medical progress, which is often slow and dangerous. Professor Winston delves into robotic surgery and stem-cell technology and then travels to Africa, where a desperate lack of resources forces a British surgeon to seek alternative methods.

In the first programme, Professor Winston looks at cutting-edge surgical robots in the UK and around the world and questions how useful this expensive technology really is.

The film shows a tiny baby undergoing a robotic operation in Leeds and it's revealed that the operation could just as easily have been performed without the robot. The baby is the smallest in the UK and Europe to be operated on by a robot and the programme asks whether this really is the best thing for both the baby and for medicine.

Also shown is how space technology has made the Canadian "Neuroarm" robot (pictured) possible. Not only can the surgeon see exactly what's going on inside the patient's brain without having to take the skull off, but they can feel it as well. It is a robot with a sense of touch.

Professor Winston begins his journey as a very cynical observer - how could a robot ever take over the very human relationship between a doctor and patient? But he has an open mind and is willing to be convinced. The question is, how does he feel at the end of his journey?

Add your comment or views to this programme