What ordinarily takes eight hours was done in only one when the world’s first robot-performed heart surgery took place last week in the United Kingdom. Kenneth Crocker, 70, had a catheter inserted into his body at Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital by a new robotic system under the control of surgeon André Ng, who guided the equipment from the next room. Not only was the Remote Catheter Manipulation System (RCMS) able to more quickly perform the operation that corrected Crocker’s irregular heartbeat, but it also spared Ng from being exposed to the more than 250 X-rays that accompany the procedure so that doctors can monitor the inside of the patient’s body. The RCMS was developed by Catheter Robotics in the United States.