AMA Journal of Ethics^®

More frequent use of robotic-assisted surgeries means we need to ask more questions about care quality and equity, informed consent, and conflicts of interest.

This article considers which risks AI-facilitated surgical robotics pose for safety, confidentiality, informed consent, and surgical training. 

Telesurgery is a form of global health diplomacy, and negotiations between LMICs and HICs can have transnational consequences.

Costs partly determine organizational robotics, but questions remain about whether and to what extent they should influence care decisions. 

Since their adoption during the 1990s, minimally invasive surgical techniques have demonstrated postoperative surgical recovery benefits for patients. 

Diagnostic utility of weight and body mass index is widely overestimated, and their use as health and wellness measures can be sources of iatrogenic harm. 

Physicians tend to rely on diagnostic criteria, including BMI, that can influence patients’ access to care, referrals, and insurance coverage for indicated interventions. 

Underlying ideological foundations of stigma and equipment inadequacy include thin-centrism and inadequate representation of fat people in health care organizational leadership.  

Weight loss is not a safe, effective, or permanent method of health promotion, and pharmacotherapeutical approaches pose specific risks to adolescents. 

Although body-mass index is regularly used, it has come under clinical and ethical scrutiny.