Robot doctors
Surgeos in action
an interesting article on Radio 4’s this morning got me thinking. Would I be happy letting a robot operate on me?
I have to say, I don’t know. If the operation is a success then it’s obviously a no-brainer. However, is the robot likely to make that operation more successful? That’s the real question…
People do screw up, surgeons doing routine surgeries are no more like to remember an uneventful surgery than an experienced driver is likely to remember his/her journey into work along the normal route.
Does that mean the robot would be better? More consistent? Less likely to make an obvious mistake? I don’t know, but I do think that the simple operations are the means for training up coming surgeons and the means for relaxing when you have lots of experience. So maybe they should be saved for the humans…
Posted: October 24th, 2008 under 42.