No one here (clinically trained, at least) is misguided about the functionality or capability of Surgibot. All these medical devices are different means to roughly the same end -- a successful case. Surgibot is capable of completing the same bread & butter cases that ISRG machines and SPORT's design can do.
But Surgibot isn't anything revolutionary, nor is it arguably economical, either. It is (expensive) one-site laparoscopic surgery with the marketing capability that it is "robotic" surgery, therefore hospital so-and-so can put on a billboard saying that they can take your gall bladder out with a "robot." But surprise, it isn't any more robotic than a hand-held Dyson is versus an iRobot Roomba. It is directly-driven.
Once again, you have to stand up to use it. You have to be in the sterile field after docking. You have to squint at another pitiful 1080p 2D screen. The marginal difference between that work environment and that of traditional open or laparoscopic surgery is not enough to merit standardization, let alone wide industrialization. My bachelor's is in biomedical engineering, so give me what little credit I deserve for that -- Surgibot is cool tech that will attract invited testdrivers but if I go to medical school and go surgery, I'd dismiss it as just a "clever step in a lateral direction."
The remote console paradigm, however, is revolutionary, and now all it needs is further industrialization and one-site refinement.
Three groups have to be appeased: The hospital, the patient, the user. Entertain me why Surgibot appeases the latter. Why should it appease a next-gen military surgeon who needs to perform a procedure remotely? A new 30yo surgical resident?
