A gallbladder removed without the surgeon entering the operating room
Robotic surgery in Islamabad has reached a milestone that would have sounded like science fiction a few years ago: a surgeon removed a patient’s gallbladder without ever entering the operating room, steering the surgical robot over a live link from a conference venue across the city. Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU) has called it the capital’s first robotic gallbladder operation performed through telesurgery, according to a university press statement carried by The News.
The operation — a cholecystectomy, the routine general-surgery procedure for removing the gallbladder — was performed by Prof. Dr. Syed Tanseer Asghar, the university’s registrar and a robotic surgeon. He worked the robotic surgical console from the International Conference on Future of Healthcare (FHCC 2026), held at the Gandhara Heritage and Culture Centre, while the patient lay in an operating theatre at Kulsum International Hospital in Blue Area, the Saif Group-run cardiac and general hospital.
How the remote operation worked
Telesurgery splits the surgical team across two locations, and this operation ran on exactly that model. On the hospital side, consultant robotic and vascular surgeon Dr. Sana Sharafat Ali acted as the patient-side surgeon — she managed the robot’s patient cart and provided on-site surgical support, staying in contact with Prof. Asghar for the length of the procedure. The News reports that conference delegates followed the operation as a live demonstration, with surgical teams at two locations coordinated through the robotic system and real-time connectivity, as corroborated by Focus Pakistan.
That bedside team is the quiet hero of every remote operation. While the console surgeon controls the robotic instruments from afar, the clinicians in the theatre handle everything physical at the patient’s side — and this procedure underscored how much clinical teamwork and on-site support still matter in telesurgery, even when the lead surgeon is kilometres away.
Not the first remote surgery — but the first all-Pakistani one
Pakistan has seen remote operations before, but the console surgeon had always been abroad. In December 2025, surgeons in Kuwait operated on a woman at Karachi’s Lyari General Hospital from about 1,600 kilometres away — an operation Sindh health officials described as the country’s first cross-border telerobotic surgery. In February this year, urologists at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi removed the kidney and ureter of a Pakistan-based patient from a console in the UAE.
What makes the Islamabad procedure different is that both ends stayed in Pakistan: the console surgeon at the conference venue and the bedside team at Kulsum were all Pakistani teams, working in close step over the live link. It is the first time the country’s own surgeons have carried a remote operation end to end.
What SZABMU says comes next
SZABMU Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Tanwir Khaliq, himself a surgeon, described the operation as “an important step for SZABMU and for the wider healthcare community,” saying it shows how robotic technology, reliable connectivity and close coordination between surgical teams can expand the possibilities for specialist care. He added that as these capabilities develop, patient safety, professional training and responsible use of technology must remain central.
The university says it has secured approval for its first Robotic and Artificial Intelligence Health Centre — a proposed facility that would develop robotic and AI applications in healthcare while supporting professional training and institutional capacity-building. Over time, SZABMU says, telesurgery could help bring specialist surgical skills to patients in places that lack them, though wider use will hinge on dependable technology and proper clinical protocols.
One honest caveat, carried in both reports: the university statement did not disclose the patient’s condition after surgery, name the robotic platform used, or describe the network that linked the conference venue to the hospital — so none of those details are part of this story. What is on record is the milestone itself: the capital’s first remote robotic gallbladder removal, performed live before a healthcare conference, with Pakistani surgeons at both ends of the link.
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