A new $1 million robotic surgical system allows Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham to perform what one doctor calls “more elegant” noninvasive surgeries.

Dr. Jonah Murdock, a Greenbelt-based urologist, was the first to use the hospital’s surgical system in late December, when he repaired a woman’s blocked ureter in a surgery called pyeloplasty.

The system includes a console for the surgeon, a cart with four arms that attach to miniature instruments, and a camera that produces 3-D images. It allows doctors to perform faster and “more artful” surgeries through quarter-inch incisions, which is possible but often more difficult with laparoscopic surgery, Murdock said.

“It’s a lot more elegant and exact, and the results are better,” Murdock said. “It’s like being an octopus with these tiny instruments.”

Murdock has performed three surgeries with the system, which has been used in the U.S. for about 11 years, and a gynecologist at the hospital also has used the system.