Robotic Surgeon: The Doctor at the Console in the Age of AI

Go through a day of yours.

You have an open day surgery planned.

What happens first?

So get up in the morning, have my coffee, walk the dog, and then head on in.

I see the patients that are already there, if I have any patients that are in-house, make sure everything's going fine, make sure that everything's good for discharge if they're going home, and then I get to the OR.

First thing I do is I see the patients in pre-op, and I chat with them.

Usually, I've already seen them in clinic, and I'll say, "Hey, any changes to your health since last time we saw you? Yes? No? Here's the changes.

Here's that." I'll go over the risks again.

I'll go over the consent.

I make sure that's all signed, and then we roll on back to the OR.

[machine beeping] When I get into the OR, if it's a team that I haven't worked with before, what I'll do is I will talk through each step of the surgery.

I'll say, "Hey, the first instrument I'm gonna need is this.

I'm gonna need my local anesthetic, like a lidocaine, and then I'm gonna need the blade.

After the blade, I'm gonna need this port.

I'm gonna need this port.

This.

We're gonna put this in.

You're gonna be on that side.

I'm gonna be on this side.

We're gonna do this, this, this.

Once our ports are in, we're gonna do that.

Any questions about anything? Here's where our instruments are gonna go.

Here's the arms are gonna be in." They go, "Nope.

Sounds good." At the head of the bed is the anesthesiologist or anesthetist.

They're the ones, once they're asleep, that they are in control.