Ms JODIE HARRISON (Charlestown)— Dr Richard Verheul, a surgeon at Lake Macquarie Private Hospital in Gateshead, recently celebrated an important and very interesting milestone: his one thousandth robotics case.

Dr Verheul undertook this surgery on 30 May, less than two years after his first procedure using the Robotic Surgical Assistant—nicknamed ROSA. The device is designed to help perform orthopaedic operations with increased accuracy and control.

Allowing a surgeon to establish a pre-operative plan in 3D then execute the surgery more accurately, it leads to better patient outcomes and faster recovery time.

Dr Verhuel is an accomplished surgeon, with a special interest in Hip and knee surgery. He has undertaken further fellowship training in revision hip and knee surgery and bone cartilage transplantation, and he trains and lectures overseas.

After the landmark thousandth procedure, Dr Verhuel remarked that it was just like the nine hundred and ninety‑nine which came before it—and that he has thousands more surgeries ahead of him in his career.

Congratulations to Dr Verhuel on this achievement. I look forward to seeing where these sorts of technological advances take us in the future.

A Community Recognition Notice is an opportunity for an MP to submit a short statement praising the work of an individual or group in the local community. If you have any ideas about people I can recognise with a Community Recognition Notice, please email and let me know!