The Cognitive Revolution in Surgery

In the last decade, we have witnessed the great potential of a Cognitive Revolution in surgery.

Cognition is “the action or faculty of knowing”.

Recent progress in one of its major subfields, artificial intelligence (AI), has created the promise of revolution.

A revolution is a “dramatic or wide-reaching change in conditions”.

Examples include the Industrial Revolution, which jump-started modern society by transitioning manual labor into machine-assisted processes.

Surgery has also undergone many revolutions.

In the 19th century, the development of general anesthesia and asepsis allowed surgeons to perform invasive surgical procedures safely.

The 20th-century innovations of surgical staplers, endoscopy, and laparoscopy have created modern surgery as we know it.

Almost 30% of surgical patients will suffer a complication despite this progress.

Surgery must improve, and AI offers a potential solution: the Cognitive Revolution.