AI exposure: Surgical Assistants
Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons. May, in accordance with state laws, help surgeons to make incisions and close surgical sites, manipulate or remove tissues, implant surgical devices or drains, suction the surgical site, place catheters, clamp or cauterize vessels or tissue, and apply dressings to surgical site.
Reading this score
computedSurgical Assistants is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 6.4% of weighted task load, rank 860 of 923. 85.5% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 28 tasks it averages 2.62 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Verify the identity of patient or operative site, at 60.0%. The least is Transport patients to operating room, at 0.0%. A gap of 60.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.5% across the group's 89 roles, with 85 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 28 tasks, 2 are currently banded exposed, 2 assisted and 24 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.55 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.62 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 2.40 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 2.35 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.65 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.57 | 0-3 |
Task by task
28 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verify the identity of patient or operative site. | 60.0% | 40.0% | 0.0% | 4.69 | exposed |
| Determine availability of necessary equipment or supplies for operative procedures. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.58 | exposed |
| Adjust and maintain operating room temperature, humidity, or lighting, according to surgeon's specifications. | 18.8% | 18.8% | 62.5% | 4.20 | untouched |
| Discuss with surgeon the nature of the surgical procedure, including operative consent, methods of operative exposure, diagnostic or laboratory data, or patient-advanced directives or other needs. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 4.48 | assisted |
| Coordinate with anesthesia personnel to maintain patient temperature. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 4.35 | assisted |
| Obtain or inspect sterile or non-sterile surgical equipment, instruments, or supplies. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.67 | untouched |
| Assess skin integrity or other body conditions upon completion of the procedure to determine if damage has occurred from body positioning. | 9.6% | 23.7% | 66.7% | 4.45 | untouched |
| Monitor patient intra-operative status, including patient position, vital signs, or volume and color of blood. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.50 | untouched |
| Prepare and apply sterile wound dressings. | 2.1% | 10.4% | 87.5% | 4.49 | untouched |
| Monitor and maintain aseptic technique throughout procedures. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.88 | untouched |
| Maintain an unobstructed operative field, using surgical retractors, sponges, or suctioning and irrigating equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.82 | untouched |
| Pass instruments or supplies to surgeon during procedure. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.76 | untouched |
| Assist with patient resuscitation during cardiac arrest or other life-threatening events. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.73 | untouched |
| Assist members of surgical team with gowning or gloving. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.66 | untouched |
| Cover patients with surgical drapes to create and maintain a sterile operative field. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.65 | untouched |
| Coordinate or participate in the positioning of patients, using body stabilizing equipment or protective padding to provide appropriate exposure for the procedure or to protect against nerve damage or circulation impairment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.65 | untouched |
| Gather, arrange, or assemble instruments or supplies. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.57 | untouched |
| Operate sterilizing devices. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.56 | untouched |
| Clamp, ligate, or cauterize blood vessels to control bleeding during surgical entry, using hemostatic clamps, suture ligatures, or electrocautery equipment. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.50 | untouched |
| Apply sutures, staples, clips, or other materials to close skin, facia, or subcutaneous wound layers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.44 | untouched |
| Assist in the insertion, positioning, or suturing of closed-wound drainage systems. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.32 | untouched |
| Assist in applying casts, splints, braces, or similar devices. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.17 | untouched |
| Remove patient hair or disinfect incision sites to prepare patient for surgery. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Incise tissue layers in lower extremities to harvest veins. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.20 | untouched |
| Postoperatively inject a subcutaneous local anesthetic agent to reduce pain. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.15 | untouched |
| Insert or remove urinary bladder catheters. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Assist in volume replacement or autotransfusion techniques. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.84 | untouched |
| Transport patients to operating room. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.59 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.