Dominican Hospital doctors now have a $1.5 million tool to help them carry out complex surgeries with greater precision and hopefully better results for patients.

Dr. David Benjamin performed the first surgery at the hospital April 25 using the da Vinci robotic system, removing a cancerous prostate. Patient Leon Mayou, 57, a Watsonville native, went home the next day with no pain.

"It went as smooth as any case I've ever seen," said Benjamin, who performed 20 of the robotic procedures at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose before Dominican bought the equipment.

The prostatectomy is the most common robotic surgery, according to Intuitive Surgical of Sunnyvale, which has sold 867 da Vinci systems worldwide and reports more than 110,000 procedures performed.

Intuitive Surgical has become the leader in surgical robotic systems since acquiring competitor Computer Motion in 2003. Last year, it ranked fourth on Fortune's list of fastest-growing companies with revenue growth of 62 percent.

Analysts project the surgical robotics market in the U.S. will grow to $2.5 billion by 2011.

The da Vinci is being used at 46 hospitals in California, including 16 in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Benjamin, 41, and Dr. Mark Rosen, 47, of Monterey Bay Urology Associates, trained on the equipment more than two years ago. Both doctors say the new system is an improvement over laparoscopy, which also

A surgeon sits at the da Vinci console, with a computer-chip camera inside the patient giving him a close-up view to guide the arms of the robot to snip and suture. The da Vinci has four arms with jointed wrists, a greater range of motion than the human hand, and it's steadier, too.

"I see better," Benjamin said, because of 3-D magnification and a high-definition screen. "I can go around corners and upside down."

Doctors say the robot filters out routine hand tremors and can make tinier cuts, which means less blood loss for patients and quicker recovery.

"It's a very intuitive system to learn," Rosen said. "Whatever movements you make with your hands, those are the movements the instruments make inside the body. Complex operations that require precise dissection and fine suturing have been difficult to learn laparoscopically, but they are much easier to perform with the da Vinci system."

Studies have found a correlation between video game skills and laparoscopic surgical skills. That appears to be the case for Benjamin, who said he "started with Pong and stopped at Nintendo."

He switched from general surgery to urology, excited about technological advances in that specialty. Still, he was skeptical in 1995 when he heard robotic surgery being designed for military use.

"We all pooh-poohed it," he said.

Now he's a believer.

Mayou, his first patient at Dominican, said he feels great, a sharp contrast to his previous back surgery, when he spent five days in the hospital and was miserable.

"Having surgery with a robot and a doctor seemed better than a doctor alone," said Mayou, who trained as an engineer.

"Some day, it will get the level of 'Star Trek,'" he predicted.