Pakistan's first robotic telesurgery: SZABMU surgeon removes a gallbladder in Islamabad from a remote console

A surgeon in Islamabad has removed a patient's gallbladder using a robot he controlled from a different building, in what Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU) describes as Pakistan's first robotic telesurgery, ProPakistani reported on Thursday, 5 November.

What happened

• The operation: a cholecystectomy, the standard operation to remove the gallbladder, usually done for gallstones.
• The surgeon: Prof. Dr. Syed Tanseer Asghar, a robotic surgeon and SZABMU's registrar.
• Where he sat: at the International Conference on Future of Healthcare (FHCC 2026) at the Gandhara Heritage and Culture Centre in Islamabad, steering the robotic instruments over a live data link.
• Where the patient was: in the operating theatre of Kulsum International Hospital, Islamabad, with a surgical team at the bedside.

It was a demonstration, carried out in front of a conference audience, rather than the start of a regular telesurgery service.

Why telesurgery matters in Pakistan

In telesurgery the surgeon's hands move controls at a console, and the robot copies those movements on the patient, with video sent back in real time. The promise for Pakistan is reach: a specialist in Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi could one day operate on a patient in a district hospital in south Punjab, interior Sindh, Balochistan or Gilgit-Baltistan without either of them travelling.

The limits are real too. A remote operation needs a fast, stable connection with almost no delay, a robot at the patient's end, and a trained team ready to take over by hand if the link drops. SZABMU itself says wider use depends on "the availability of appropriate infrastructure, clinical safeguards and regulatory frameworks".

What comes next

SZABMU vice chancellor Prof. Dr. Tanwir Khaliq has secured approval for the university's first Robotic Surgery and Artificial Intelligence Health Centre, to train surgeons and run research on robotic and AI-assisted care. No opening date or cost has been announced.

If you need gallbladder surgery now

For patients today, nothing changes: gallbladder removal in Pakistan is done mainly by laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery at the bedside. If you are comparing options, see the hospitals in Islamabad in our directory and ask each hospital for a written package price before admission.