Dr. Ariel Ortiz — AO monogramDr. Ariel Ortiz®

Position Paper

Artificial intelligence in surgical education.

AI does not replace the surgical teacher. It gives the teacher memory, metrics, comparison, and objective feedback. This is what that looks like in practice.

  1. 01

    From surgical video to evidence

    Every operation now generates recorded video. Historically that footage lived on hard drives and was rarely reviewed. AI turns it into structured evidence — timestamped, indexed, and comparable across surgeons and institutions.

  2. 02

    Phase segmentation

    Modern models can segment a laparoscopic case into its constituent phases automatically. Once phases are labeled, everything downstream — duration, deviation, and comparison — becomes measurable rather than anecdotal.

  3. 03

    Learning curves

    Learning curves used to be an abstract concept. With phase segmentation and outcomes linkage, we can now describe them at the individual surgeon level and identify exactly which phase is limiting progress.

  4. 04

    Master versus apprentice comparison

    Side-by-side video and metric comparison between a trainee and a master surgeon on the same phase — same anatomy, same operation — is the most powerful teaching tool that has entered surgical education in a generation.

  5. 05

    Technical performance analysis

    Instrument motion, economy of movement, dissection efficiency, and error events can be extracted from video without adding hardware. This makes objective performance review a routine part of training rather than a research exercise.

  6. 06

    Patient-adjusted complexity

    Not all cases are equally difficult. AI-assisted risk and complexity scoring lets a program compare a trainee's fifty most recent cases against a benchmark that accounts for BMI, prior surgery, anatomical variants, and comorbidities.

  7. 07

    Ethical limits

    AI-generated feedback must be transparent about its confidence, its training data, and its limits. It is a decision-support tool for teachers and trainees — not an autonomous evaluator, and not a substitute for clinical mentorship.

  8. 08

    Human teacher plus data

    The right pairing is a human teacher supported by data. AI gives the teacher memory, metrics, comparison, and objective feedback. It does not replace the teacher. It amplifies what the best teachers already do.

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