The Wall Street Journal Health Blog had a witty interpretation of Sunday's New York Times business section piece on robotic surgery; specifically, the three laws of robotics in I, Robot and how they mesh with the current state of surgical robots. Although not an expert in science fiction written before my parents were born, I looked up the handy Wikipedia page on the subject and thought of one additional maxim: the Zeroth Law.

The Zeroth Law states that a robot must not merely act in the interests of individual humans, but of all humanity. (It's numbered zero because it is meant to preempt the other three laws if applicable.) With that in mind, we think that robots should be used if they increase quality, such as the case of gallbladder surgery, but should be more cautiously used where their benefit is marginal but certainly more expensive, like prostate surgery. Unless of course the patient is willing to pick up more of the tab, as to not pass it on to others in the insurance pool (or for Medicare beneficiaries, taxpayers). I think the robots would approve.