This week I read the news about Stryker's $400M investment in CMR Surgical, and I had a familiar feeling: excitement (followed by worry).

Let me tell you why…

Back when I became the first surgeon to operate while wearing Google Glass. The headlines were all about the gadget. But what mattered to me was never the gadget. It was the student in the next room, watching my point of view in real time, learning without scrubbing in. It was the colleagues who called me from South America, from Asia, from Europe the next day, asking how they could do the same for their trainees. Technology, used intentionally, has only one job: to connect us, teach us, and extend our reach. That's it.

Which brings me back to the robots…

Robotic surgery is having its moment. Investment is flowing, FDA clearances are stacking up, and more platforms are entering the market every year. Hospitals are buying. Ambulatory surgery centers are buying. The hardware race is real, and honestly, it's good to see competition heating up. Choice drives prices down, and smaller, modular systems can finally fit into operating rooms that were never built for a robotic hulk in the corner. But hardware is only half the story, and the other half is who actually gets taught to use it.

Research on robotic surgery training in U.S. general surgery residency programs shows how uneven the picture is. Console time varies widely. Many programs have no formal robotic curriculum. And training is largely concentrated in the hospitals that already own a robot, or plan to buy one soon. Stop and think about that: a technology whose entire promise is better surgery for more patients is being taught mostly where it already exists. The gap isn't in the machine. It's in the pipeline.

I've spent years working in rural Maine, where I've seen what happens when the newest tool lives three hours away. I built teletrauma programs on iPods and smartphones because the big wall mounted systems were expensive, hard to maintain, and out of reach for the places that needed them most. The lesson stuck with me. Access to technology means nothing without access to training. In many ways, training is the technology.

Now picture the alternative…

Every resident, at every kind of hospital, in every country, gets real practice before they ever need it. Surgical simulation. Virtual reality. Shared, open curricula. Mentors who can teach from across the country or across the ocean, the same way a headset let me share my field of view with a room full of students. That's when the robot stops being a perk of big academic centers and becomes a tool surgeons everywhere actually know how to use well. That's when this technology makes a difference at a scale we've never seen.

So what do we do? To program directors and health systems: fund training and simulation as seriously as you fund the machines. A robot without a training pathway is an expensive piece of furniture. To industry: you build beautiful platforms. Now build the ecosystem. Simulator access, open curricula, mentorship networks. Your customers' competence is your best marketing. To educators: share what you've built. If you developed a curriculum that works, you owe it forward. The resident in Lagos or Lima doesn't need a fancier robot. What they really need is your playbook.

And to my fellow surgeons: stay curious, but remember to stay grounded. Console time should build on the fundamentals, never replace them. Strong hands and sound judgment matter with or without the robot. Some lessons are still best learned the old way, one careful case at a time. The next generation of surgeons will decide how far this goes.

Let's make sure they all get a seat at the console.

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Dr. Rafael Grossmann is a trauma surgeon, digital health innovator, and global keynote speaker focused on the intersection of technology and human-centered medicine. He speaks on AI in healthcare, physician burnout, and the future of patient care.