Despite the growing demand for robotic surgery in the world, there remains a shortage of surgeons who are proficient in operating robotic surgery systems, with less than 20% of surgeons in India and Southeast Asia having received formal training for robotic-assisted surgery (RAS). This is a critical issue to address as robotic surgeries offer significant benefits, including shorter hospital stays and reduced post-surgery complications. To address this problem, there must be more surgeons who are proficient in RAS.

However, currently there is a lack of exposure and access to RAS training for post-graduate medical residents who interested in surgery. We hypothesise that this decreases the chance of inflow of surgery students or aspiring surgeons into RAS. This parallels research suggesting that early exposure to hobbies in technological or IT fields is linked to greater persistence in related academic programmes and even influences later career choices.

To address this problem, we have created a low-cost and compact RAS training platform that can expose surgery residents to robotic surgery earlier in their medical career, providing preliminary training and a general understanding of robotic surgery systems. The solution is created using using low-cost and commonly available hardware and software, drawing inspiration from accessible hardware platforms such as the Raspberry Pi, which revolutionised the field by democratising technology that was once considered inaccessible. These platforms succeeded through their ease of use, compact design, and ability to spark interest — cultivating  communities of passionate enthusiasts who often transformed their early interest into careers in technology and engineering. Similarly, our hardware is designed with the same democratic spirit, lowering barriers to entry and encouraging exploration. Our results demonstrate that the training platform can spark interest, and we hope this translates to more medical students and post-graduate medical residents developing an interest in RAS, and ultimately increasing the number of robotic surgeons in Singapore and other places.