But what are the surgeons thus saying whilst we are asleep, (more or less) trusting, on an operating table? Adélaïde Blavier and Anne-Sophie Nyssen have looked into the question. And these phrases teach us much about the way new technologies are integrated or managed.

Place a robot in an operating theatre, and then listen to what the surgeons are saying. You will doubtless be surprised but the results brook no argument: the robot makes people speak. Better still it makes them utter phrases which are generally needless in other forms of surgical operation. And more impressive yet: robotic systems modify the relationships between the partners in question. It sets up a hierarchy – which is moreover beneficial – between the surgeons, with a necessary grasping of leadership by one amongst them. These conclusions, amongst others, feature in a surprising study, by Adélaïde Blavier, a FNRS postdoctoral researcher, and Professor Anne-Sophie Nyssen, who are both psychologists and teachers at the University of Liège’s Cognitive Ergonomics Laboratory. Their research confirms that the use of robotic systems changes fundamentally the role and work of a surgeon, just as it does that of his or her team. Clearly, their study will probably make practitioners even more aware of what technology demands in terms of adapting and training on their part. A little as if the psychologists were whispering to them the rules of a new play they were taking part in. A question of avoiding the traps…

In keeping with preceding studies on technologies and their risks of error or on the reliability of complex systems, Adélaïde Blavier and Anne-Sophie Nyssen looked especially at the communication which takes place in high technology surgery. Their study into ‘the impact of robotics on co-operation in surgery’ (1) confirms that the introduction of external change into the environment disturbs the modes of co-operation the team had acquired previously. ‘The analysis of these verbal communications in real time reveals the adaptation needs of the ‘socio-technical system’ when faced with newness and the associated risks,’ they write.

In decoding the words of surgeons plunged into a new technological environment the psychologists thus reveal how the current practice of surgery by robot demands, besides new learning, deep changes in the way specialists function and communicate. To put it another way, in listening to the surgeons, Adélaïde Blavier and Anne-Sophie Nyssen show how the robot makes the doctors speak and what adaptations and specific demands it requires from them.