Surgery Archives - Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Education and Events

About us

Our History

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is an internationally renowned teaching organisation, and home to the largest surgical robotic centre in the UK. With this history in education excellence alongside our leading faculty, we are uniquely placed to provide robotic training across nine surgical specialties, consisting of both benign, complex, cancer, adults and children’s services.

GSTT Robotics Timeline and World Firsts

Guy’s and St Thomas’ has been a leader in the field of robotics for many years, with the first case performed in 2003. Throughout the rapid growth and evolution of the robotic arena, we have demonstrated a continued commitment to pioneering evaluation, training and implementation of new robotic platforms.

Thus far, the Trust has 11 robotic systems, both therapeutic and diagnostic and has achieved a number of significant milestones, including:

Building the largest thoracic robotic centre in UK, soon to be largest in Europe
Achieving world first surgeries in orbital surgery, in a dual thoracic-head and neck robotic procedure, and in trans-oral robotic surgery using the CMR Versius system
Being the first UK Trust to launch the Medtronic Hugo robot and establish a robust programme
Offering robotic-assisted donor nephrectomy and kidney transplant as the only UK centre to offer both procedures
The first UK centre to achieve 10,000 Da Vinci surgeries in 2023
Participation in the UK’s first study into the ION diagnostic robot

GSTT Robotics Education offer

Since 2024, GSTT have offered regular platform agnostic training across our services and supported by industry partners in the form of our RoboSTART and RoboREADY courses. These courses are run in collaboration with the International Medical Robotics Academy (IMRA), based in Melbourne Australia and include simulation, dry lab and wet lab components.

TRoboSTART

Venue: Sherman Education Centre, 4^th Floor Southwark Wing, Guy’s Hospital
Date: 20 June 2025
Suitable for: Junior trainees or surgeons with no previous robotic experience

How to book

Book here

Completion of the Foundations of Robotic Surgery online module (pre-course requirement)
Engagement and participation in interactive lectures
Hands-on activities and simulated scenarios that will enable candidates to acquire technical and non-technical robotic skills
Real time assessment and feedback is provided throughout the course

Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate safe practice of robotic surgery
Describe the fundamental skills and knowledge required to be a robotic surgeon
Demonstrate basic psychomotor skills required to safely operate robotic surgical platforms
Explain how robotic surgical platforms are integrated into the operating room setting
Appraise how platforms can be best utilised in clinical practice
Describe the role of human factors in robotic surgery

RoboREADY

Advanced procedure-specific specialty: Pyeloplasty Course

Venue: Sherman Education Centre, 4^th Floor Southwark Wing, Guy’s Hospital
Date: 21 June 2025
Suitable for: Surgical trainees and Consultants with some robotic experience and the ability to complete the procedure in focus

How to book

Book here

Aims

Completion of the Foundations of Robotic Surgery online module (pre-course requirement)
Engagement and participation in interactive lectures
Hands-on activities and simulated scenarios that will enable candidates to acquire technical and non-technical robotic skills
Real time assessment and feedback is provided throughout the course

Learning Outcomes

Identifying appropriate patient selection and determining suitable robotic surgical approaches for pyeloplasty
Safe surgical strategies for transperitoneal access, including a step-by-step review of the pyeloplasty procedure
Mastering the key steps in reconstructing the ureteropelvic junction, including intraoperative assistance and stent placement techniques

Fellowships

In addition, our surgical teams offer a variety of highly competitive robotic Fellowships in Thoracic surgery robotics both in person and virtually.

Urology
Head and Neck
Gynaecology

Industry Partnerships

Over the course of the years, we have developed strong relationships with our industry partners who support us in delivering our wide-ranging robotic programme and educational events. These relationships uniquely place us to streamline implementation, drive development and evaluation, and deliver high-quality training.

GSTT Robotics Research Opportunities

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is part of King’s Health Partners to bring together research, education and clinical practice across three NHS Foundation Trusts – Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley – and a world-leading university, King’s College London. This opportunity affords us the incredible opportunity to utilise the world-class Surgical Intervention and Engineering validation suite and the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering lab for robotic training and evaluation.

Lead faculty

Ben Challacombe

Director of Education and Clinical Lead for Robotics

Ben Challacombe was appointed to Guy's and St Thomas' in 2010 following his fellowship in Australia. He is the assistant clinical lead for urology and MDM cancer lead for all urological maligancies. He runs the International robotic fellowship programme and teaches robotics at the British and European and World Annual Urology meetings. His areas of interest are benign and malignant prostate disease and minimally invasive surgery for the upper urological tract. Ben is the highest volume surgeon for robotic partial nephrectomy in the UK and also specialises in robotic radical prostatectomy, and robotic surgery for nephro-ureterectomy, pyeloplasty, adrenalectomy and nephrectomy, and Holmium laser prostatectomy (HoLEP). Overall Ben has performed over 2000 robotic procedures. Ben is also involved in the academic and research programmes within the department. He has a Certificate in Postgraduate Education and is involved with both undergraduate and postgraduate urological teaching. He has been the Guy’s and St Thomas' surgical tutor for junior surgeons

Prokar Dasgupta

Chairman and KHP Professor of Surgery

Professor Prokar Dasgupta OBE is one of the world's leading robotic urological surgeons and the recipient of the John Wickham lifetime achievement award in robotic surgery in 2023. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to surgery and science. He pioneered robotic surgery in urology in the UK, and with the help of The Urology Foundation, trained and mentored several consultant surgeons and over 30 fellows both nationally and internationally. He was the first to develop image guided and 3D printed prostatectomies, indentation probes for precise localisation of tumours and is ambassador for the KCL-Ericsson 5G global health program in telemedicine. He was chief investigator for the world's first randomised controlled trial of telerobotics and the only trial comparing open, laparoscopic and robotic cystectomy. Professor Prokar Dasgupta has authored and co-authored over 1100 articles including more than 600 peer-reviewed papers in addition to 10 books and 25 chapters

Nicholas Raison

Academic Lead for Robotic Training and Simulation

Nicholas Raison is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the School of Surgical & Interventional Engineering and an Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon at King’s College Hospital. Nicholas has a specialist clinical in interest in functional, reconstructive and neuro-urology. He completed his Phd with Professor Prokar Dasgupta at Kings College London and Guys Hospital. His doctoral thesis evaluated the role of simulation for robotic surgical training, entitled the MARS project (the Multi-institutional validation and Assessment of training modalities in Robotic Surgery). Nicholas’ research focuses on improving outcomes in surgical education through innovation. He was awarded the John Blandy prize for his study on the role of mental imagery for technical and non-technical training in robotics. Nicholas has a particular interest in non-technical skills and chairs the European Association of Urology working group for non-technical skills training