Grenoble was one of the first places worldwide where a robot was used in clinical routine. In 1989, the first robot-assisted procedure on a patient took place in the neurosurgery department of the Grenoble University Hospital. An industrial robot modified to satisfy to the clinical constraints was used as a positioning device for guiding minimally invasively the surgical tool to a planned target. Based on that experience and on our knowledge of the clinical domain, we progressively re-directed our activity towards the design of specific robotic devices answering important issues among which safety, interactivity and clinical suitability. In this paper, we describe in more details our view of what surgical robotics is and should be and we illustrate our approach by the description and discussion of research in progress at TIMC: the PADyC arm, a passive device constraining the surgeon s motions in function of a pre-planned surgical protocol - the TER system a non rigid and portable robot for tele-echography - and LER a portable endoscope holder. We will discuss the specificities of medical robotics. Finally, we will draw the perspectives that we foresee for this domain.