Surgery by remote control: Using a computerized robotic system, a surgeon controls the operation procedure from the other side of the room.

From Medical Correspondent Al Hinman

PARIS (CNN) -- The operation is delicate enough under normal conditions. But for Dr. Alain Carpentier, repairing a disease-damaged heart valve is made more complicated by the patient's location -- another part of the room.

Carpentier is controlling the delicate procedure by remote control, using an experimental, computerized robotic system designed to advance the potential of minimally-invasive surgery.

Some doctors believe the endoscopic procedure allows them to perform the most delicate of operations with little risk and post-operative discomfort.

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If robotic surgery continues to show it's safe and successful, it could mean doctors may need to cut across the chest and crack the rib cage to perform open-heart surgery only in rare cases.

"For the patient, the benefit is obvious," said Carpentier, a medical professor and world-renowned French cardiac surgeon. "Small incisions mean less pain, less bleeding, less operative trauma, faster recovery."

Lazare Winn was the first patient ever to undergo a robotic, endoscopic heart bypass, in May 1998.

He was up and celebrating his 70th birthday just days after surgery, avoiding the usual months of painful recovery associated with a conventional bypass.

During the procedure, robot arms are positioned over the patient. Inside, new, highly-flexible surgical instruments the size of a pencil perform the work.

"You have to imagine how the surgeon feels being inside the heart himself," Carpentier said.

Robotic surgical devices also offer the potential of possible long-distance surgery, with patients on one continent and the specialist on another. But first, they have to win the confidence of more doctors -- as well as regulatory approval in the United States and abroad.