**3.1 The surgeon's responsibility in the operating room**

Surgeons are trained to make complex decisions under pressure and to act on those decisions with appropriate speed. This requires constant situation assessment and analysis, and reassessment and reanalysis [1]. When leading a multidisciplinary team, the surgeons are held responsible for their patient's welfare, safety and wellbeing. From the very beginning of a surgeon's professional life this personal responsibility for their patients' outcome is instilled in them, and is constantly reinforced throughout their career [2, 3]. The American College of Surgeons describes the surgical profession as one of responsibility and leadership, where the surgeon is ultimately in charge of every aspect of the patients' well-being, even if they are not directly involved [4, 5]. While some of these responsibilities might be obvious, others may perhaps be less obvious, as laid out in **Table 1** [6].

The tremendous weight of carrying all this responsibility often creates a psychological mindset where the delegation of responsibilities becomes a difficult task that must be managed with great assiduity. Surgeons learn via their training to "trust no one", to delegate tasks with caution, and to personally review all data [7]. This constant and obviously essential need for oversight raises the question - What does it


**Table 1.**

*Responsibilities of the surgeon as the treating physician.*

take for surgeons to feel comfortable delegating responsibility? When do surgeons feel at ease when relinquishing part of this control? And subsequently, what does it take for the surgical profession to adopt new technologies that take part of this burden of responsibility away from the surgeon?
