Your Next Surgeon May Not Be Human

CNNMoney - 1.15.13 by Ryan Bradley

Today, four out of five prostatectomies are performed with a robot. The result is an industry at an inflection point. Robots have arrived, and hospitals, doctors, and patients are scrambling to adapt to this new technology.

Frank Clement glimpsed the robot only once. After the operating room attendant finished shaving his chest, she asked him if he wanted to be knocked out or if he would like to see the machine that would soon be inside him, navigating the space beneath his rib cage, cutting and cauterizing, and then sewing two of his arteries back into his heart. Clement wanted to see the machine. It was draped in plastic, its four jointed arms folded back toward its body. In a few months Clement would celebrate his 71st birthday, and the idea of submitting to such a device felt futuristic. He was fascinated. Then he felt a warm rush all over -- the anesthesia kicking in -- and he fell into a deep, drug-induced slumber.

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