@ddsack

You are correct that there are many good experienced surgeons who do successful surgeries without a robotic assistant. There is a surgeon in California (Adam Rosen) who has done a bunch of videos regarding hip and knee surgery. On one of them he explained that the rules governing bell curves applies to this type of surgery as well.

My goal, coming into surgery, is to do as much as I possibly can to be on the positive side of the bell curve, hopefully way on the positive side. In my opinion using a robotic assistant is part of that process.

I am sure that the robots are expensive. But most surgeons contract with outpatient or hospital surgical centers to use their facilities and most of these facilities will have robots. That doesn't avoid the training/learning curve/time for the surgeon but does mean that the surgeon doesn't have to purchase the robot.

If it came down to, all other things being equal, a surgeon using a robotic assistant vs. one not using one, I prefer the robotic option. But if it came to a decision between a very successful surgeon who doesn't use a robot but has done thousands of the surgeries vs. a surgeon who is using a robot but has only done a handful of such surgeries so far, I would go for the non robotic choice. I do agree that successful experience is king.

But it is possible to get all of them together although one might have to travel to find such a surgeon.