[danso]

Thank you for posting this...surgery is one of the few professions that I think about, and then think, "Nope, no way, not even in the wildest dreams in an alternative universe, that I could ever be a surgeon"...but I get the sense that so much pride is tied up into the skill of a surgeon, such that mechanical ability and intuition are almost inextricable. I have no problem with the assertion that a human expert is needed to make decisions as the cuts are being made. But it's astonishing to me that so much of the success of surgery relies on a near-superhuman ability of muscle control and focus, an ability that surely declines with age, even as the surgeon's wisdom and experience grows. I would love to read more about "autopilot"-type advances in medicine (though too much of the coverage focuses on, "Will robots replace your doctor?" rather than man-and-machine working together)