Today we operate through 5-millimeter ports — holes smaller than a pencil. The camera gives us 4K resolution inside the body, structures magnified twenty times. I can see blood vessels my father's generation could only feel with their fingertips. Error chances decreased dramatically. But here's the thing: the camera shows what's there. It doesn't tell you what to do about it. That still requires a surgeon's judgment.

And this isn't science fiction for Egypt anymore. Dr. Mahmoud Abdel-Hakim at Qasr El-Aini — Cairo University Hospital — performs robotic prostate surgery. Three-dimensional resection of prostate cancer with the da Vinci system. In an Egyptian public university hospital. The credit goes to the institutions that invested in this and the surgeons who trained for it.

When I asked my father once: if you could choose between an AI-powered robot and a human surgeon for your own operation, what would you pick? He said the human. I agree — for now. But AI is already diagnosing diseases at 93 percent accuracy in Chinese hospitals. It asks the patient questions, processes the answers, and produces a diagnosis. That's not operating, but it's the first step. We're maybe 10 to 15 years from the real question.