CAJ - Disadvantages of and Problems with Robotic Surgery

I have talked about the advantages of robotic surgery before but unfortunately every medal has two sides. Therefore I also want to mention the disadvantages and problems associated with surgical robots.

For the hospitals:
One of the main disadvantages when it comes to surgical robots are their astronomical costs. Buying a new daVinci robot for instance costs about 2 million $ which makes it impossible for many hospitals to buy. Robotic surgery takes more time than regular surgery. A heart surgery with a robot can take almost twice as long as a regular heart surgery but the actual time depends on the surgeons' practice with the equipment and their expertise. Because the procedure takes so long, more anesthesia and staff is needed, raising the costs again.
As surgical robots are quite large, they take up a lot of room. In an operating room with lots of instruments and stuff this could lead to problems should complications arise forcing surgeons to step in quickly.

For the surgeons:
Another drawback is the extensive time it takes for surgeons to master working with surgical robots. It takes endless hours of observing and practicing until a surgeon is ready to perform surgery on an actual person.
With further developments of surgical robots, it is likely that less staff is needed. This could lead to two possible consequences. Either it allows them to perform surgery on more patients or the number of staff needs to be reduced leading to the letting go of physicians or nurses.

For the patients:
According to several law firms, there have been several complications with the daVinci robot. Some consequences are burns due to electrical shocks, punctured vessels or organs, excessive bleeding, intestinal tearing, uterus lacerations (which is a rupture of the uterine) and even death. The company Intuitive, the producer of the daVinci robot, are currently looking into that matter and work on locating and correcting any flaws of their robots.