Ethical & Legal Issues
Virtual surgery has received much recognition and honorable mention from the beginning. So far, there haven't been any legal issues yet, but there have been a few ethical issues that it's come across. One issue is how effective virtual surgery actually is. Some people feel that although virtual surgery is great for practice, it doesn't necessarily give a full experience to the surgeon. Moving a mouse to operate on a virtual patient, and using your hands to operate on real life patients are two completley different things.  | 
Another issue is the expenses that go into virtual surgey. It is very expensive to obtain, operate and maintain the equipment that is used for virtual surgery. Hospitals pay nearly around $1 million for the machine that is used in virtual surgery. If the machine is a non-autonomous one, then the people operating it will need special training. That might even mean hiring another staff member. This would mean hospitals would have to spend more money on the machines and because of that, hospital bills might go up. In conclusion, virtual surgery has been able to avoid any legal issues, but it has been unable to avoid ethical issues. |
