In a medical first, a doctor in Florida performed a remote prostatectomy to remove cancer from a man 7,000 miles away in Africa. Vipul Patel, MD, the medical director of Orlando’s Global Robotic Institute at Advent Health, performed the prostate surgery. He has completed over 20,000 in-person robotic prostatectomies, but this is the first transcontinental robotic telesurgery. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration, these prostate procedures are more precise and less invasive and require less recovery time. “I think the humanitarian implications are enormous—there’s so many underserved areas of the world,” Patel told ABC News, adding: “It was a small step for a surgeon, but it was a huge leap for health care.”