For one 43-year-old Beijing patient, relief had seemed an impossible dream. His arm had been numb for 14 months and every hospital he went to gave him the same answer to his questions about a remedy. Surgeons told him that the risks of mass bleeding, stroke or even paralysis were too great with the delicate operation needed to fix the abnormalities in his spine and skull that were causing the condition. Then three years ago the patient met Tian Wei, a top spinal surgeon at Beijing's Jishuitan Hospital and an advocate of using robotics in medical operations. Tian and his team used a technology called the TiRobot system to create a 3D scan of the patient's torso and plot a surgical path to the affected area.