Expanding the Taxonomy of Ethical Issues in Surgical Innovation

Surgical innovation poses significant ethical challenges. Previous work has grouped these challenges under four categories: potential harms to patients; compromised informed consent; unfair allocation of healthcare resources; and conflicts of interest. We argue that recent technological developments in surgery warrant the addition of three new ethical challenges to the existing taxonomy: allocating responsibility; impact on relationships; and risks to privacy. Although these challenges predate developments in robotic surgery and Artificial Intelligence, nonetheless these technologies highlight and make more urgent the need to consider these categories and identify how the concerns they raise may be addressed.