The robotic turnaround in surgery and the changing requirements profile for chief physicians

Invasive medicine is experiencing a turnaround in automation. Artificial intelligence, imaging techniques and robots have arrived in the operating theatre. This development will accelerate exponentially in the coming years. Surgeons are already operating with three arms and holding a 3D camera with the fourth. All the doctor needs is a control console to guide the operation and precisely control every movement of the robotic assistant. So will surgeons in future rely less on their fine motor skills and more on their robotic expertise? What data will they rely on during the operation? On his experience and knowledge or on the data provided by an operating theatre platform and made available by an AI in real time, accessible at any time by voice command?

Studies have shown that surgeons who play an action game before operations perform better during laparoscopic and endoscopic procedures. It is quite possible that video gaming and virtual reality games will be on the agenda of further training programmes for young surgeons. There is no doubt that modern robot technology will be increasingly integrated into future operating theatres. And in the course of automation, artificial intelligence, together with modern surgical techniques, will play a key role. It creates the necessary framework conditions for the use of robot-assisted systems. You don’t need extreme scenarios to realise that the intensive use of automation technologies, AI and data will play a major role in the future and will have a profound impact on reality in hospitals.

The task of harmonising medical art, intuition and experience with the smart technologies of the future calls for a new type of expert. Chief physicians who develop the perspectives of robot assistants for doctors and patients beyond their own specialisms.