CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- The University of Virginia Health System is celebrating 10,000 robotic cases.

The hospital uses a robot to help with surgeries like gallbladder removal, kidney surgery, and surgery for obesity because it is less invasive than traditional practices.

Dr. Peter Hallowell, the director of Robotics Surgery, shares how these robots are used in the operating room.

“Right now, the platform offers 3-D visualization, it offers wristed instruments so that I can move the instruments like my hand. It offers a stable platform so where everybody has a natural tremor, the robot takes that away,” he said. 

Hallowell says using this method actually gives the patient a quicker recovery time with less pain, fewer complications, and fewer returns to the hospital. 

Among the surgeries that have taken place, 120 procedures have used a robotic bronchoscopy to detect cancer. Dr. Soubdh Pandey, a pulmonary and critical care specialist, says the lungs are like a maze, which can make it difficult to know exactly where they are during a procedure. 

“So what this robot does is by using the technology, it builds a GPS kind of pathway for us to go out way into the peripheral of the lung. And really be able to biopsy these lung nodules and make a diagnosis of cancer, and other types of pathology in the lung really early,” he said. 

While using this robot, doctors are able to stage the tumors and know what the next steps need to be for treatment.

“We’ve just been more accurate with diagnosing cancers and we can also diagnose these cancers at a much earlier stage when they’re much smaller. Providing the treatment much earlier and sooner before the cancers have spread further,” said Pandey.

The doctors at UVA Health using these robots say people should not be concerned about these methods of practice. They are making doctors more precise and saving lives.