{"id":10975,"date":"2018-01-09T05:14:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T05:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=10975"},"modified":"2018-01-10T05:19:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T05:19:11","slug":"young-doctors-struggle-to-learn-robotic-surgery-so-they-are-practicing-in-the-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/young-doctors-struggle-to-learn-robotic-surgery-so-they-are-practicing-in-the-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"Young doctors struggle to learn robotic surgery \u2013 so they are practicing in the shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Beane<\/a>, University of California, Santa Barbara<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence and robotics spell massive changes to the world of work. These technologies can automate new tasks, and we are making more of them, faster, better and cheaper than ever before. <\/p>\n

Surgery was early to the robotics party: Over a third of U.S. hospitals have at least one surgical robot<\/a>. Such robots have been in widespread use by a growing variety of surgical disciplines, including urology and gynecology, for over a decade. That means the technology has been around for least two generations of surgeons and surgical staff.<\/p>\n

I studied robotic surgery for over two years to understand how surgeons are adapting. I observed hundreds of robotic and \u201ctraditional\u201d procedures at five hospitals and interviewed surgeons and surgical trainees at another 13 hospitals around the country. I found that robotic surgery disrupted approved approaches surgical training. Only a minority of residents found effective alternatives. <\/p>\n

Like the surgeons I studied, we\u2019re all going to have to adapt to AI and robotics. Old hands and new recruits will have to learn new ways to do their jobs, whether in construction, lawyering, retail, finance, warfare or childcare \u2013 no one is immune. How will we do this? And what will happen when we try?<\/p>\n

A shift in surgery<\/h2>\n
\n \"\"<\/a>
\n The da Vinci Surgical Robot at a hospital in Pittsburgh.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/Keith Srakocic<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In my new paper<\/a>, published January 8, I specifically focus on how surgical trainees, known as residents, learned to use the 800-pound gorilla: Intuitive Surgical\u2019s da Vinci surgical system. This is a four-armed robot that holds sticklike surgical instruments, controlled by a surgeon sitting at a console 15 or so feet away from the patient. <\/p>\n

Robotic surgery presented a radically different work scenario for residents. In traditional (open) surgery, the senior surgeon literally couldn\u2019t do most of the work without constant hands-in-the-patient cooperation from the resident. So residents could learn by sticking to strong \u201csee one, do one, teach one\u201d norms for surgical training. <\/p>\n

This broke down in robotic surgery. Residents were stuck either \u201csucking\u201d at the bedside \u2013 using a laparoscopic tool to remove smoke and fluids from the patient \u2013 or sitting in a second trainee console, watching the surgical action and waiting for a chance to operate. <\/p>\n

In either case, surgeons didn\u2019t need residents\u2019 help, so they granted residents a lot less practice operating than they did in open procedures. The practice residents did get was lower-quality because surgeons \u201chelicopter taught\u201d \u2013 giving frequent and very public feedback to residents at the console and intermittently taking control of the robot away from them. <\/p>\n

As one resident said: \u201cIf you\u2019re on the robot and [control is] taken away, it\u2019s completely taken away and you\u2019re just left to think about exactly what you did wrong, like a kid sitting in the corner with a dunce cap. Whereas in open surgery, you\u2019re still working.\u201d <\/p>\n

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