Robo-Surgery Patient Gets New Shot at Informed Consent Claim

A Florida man who suffered complications from the robotic surgical removal of part of his prostate gland may proceed on a claim that the surgeon should have told him that he’d never performed the procedure on his own before, a state appeals court said.

A split Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District, reversed the dismissal of Rex Yentes’ complaint, which alleged that Xenofon Papadopoulos didn’t obtain his informed consent for the operation because he failed to tell Yentes about his inexperience with the surgery.

The case presents an apparent question of first impression in Florida: whether the duty to ...