Skip to Content
Uncategorized

Robot Surgeons Are Stealing Training Opportunities from Young Doctors

January 10, 2018

New research suggests that the labor-saving practice of robotic surgery is making it difficult for junior doctors to learn how to perform operations.

Rise of the robo-surgeon: Surgical robots are used by over one-third of U.S. hospitals. Over the past decade, the robots have been used for more and more types of surgery.

The impact on training: The robots mean less human work is required in the operating room. According to a paper published Tuesday in Administrative Science Quarterly, that takes away training opportunities from new doctors going through their residencies. In the past, younger doctors had “hands in patient” roles that were useful to senior surgeons. Now they’re superfluous: the robot performs many of their previous tasks.

Surgeons without skills: The study found that senior surgeons often took over from younger medics during training, so they didn’t get enough experience to learn. After completing their residencies, young doctors were not adequately prepared to complete robotic surgeries alone.

Want to stay up to date on all things future of work? Sign up for our new newsletter, Clocking In, launching later this month!

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.