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"It is change ... that is the dominant factor in society today... the world as it will be. This means that ... every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.""
- Isaac Asimov

Robot Surgeon  
  An autonomous robotic surgeon.  

Facing him from behind the desk was the surgeon The nameplate on the desk included a fully identifying series of letters and numbers which Andrew didn't bother with. To call him Doctor would be quite enough.

"When can the operation be carried through, Doctor?" he asked. Softly, with that certain inalienable note of respect that a robot always used to a human being, the surgeon said, "I am not certain, sir, that I understand how or upon whom such an operation could be performed."

There might have been a look of respectful intransigence on the surgeon's face, if a robot of his sort, in lightly bronzed stainless steel, could have such an expression - or any expression. Andrew Martin studied the robot's right hand, his cutting hand, as it lay motionless on the desk. The fingers were long and were shaped into artistically metallic, looping curves so -graceful and appropriate that one could imagine a scalpel fitting them and becoming, temporarily, one piece with them. There would be no hesitation in his work, no stumbling, no quivering, no mistakes. That confidence came with specialization, of course, a specialization so fiercely desired by humanity that few robots were, any longer, independently brained. A surgeon, of course, would have to be.

From The Bicentennial Man, by Isaac Asimov.
Published by Ballantine Books in 1976
Additional resources -

Compare to robot surgery from Secret of the Buried City (1939) by John Russell Fearn.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Bicentennial Man
  More Ideas and Technology by Isaac Asimov
  Tech news articles related to The Bicentennial Man
  Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov

Robot Surgeon-related news articles:
  - Robot Surgeons To Be Fully Autonomous
  - Best Surgeon? The Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot
  - Medical Assistant Robot May Roam The Halls Of Hospitals

Articles related to Robotics
Toy-Like Robot Well-Being Coaches Are The Best
Scent-Identifying Robot Uses Machine Learning
Robot Imagines Itself (Not The First Time This Has Happened)
Intelligent Trash Sorting By Robots Predicted Long Ago

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