Is It Speculative Fiction or Real Life with Dr. Roger Smith

The Florida Writer Podcast

You might be surprised to know that surgical robots are used for over one million procedures every year. In this episode, Dr. Roger Smith chats with Florida Writer Podcast Host Alison Nissen about his medical thriller series on robotic surgeons in the year 2050 and his real-life work with surgical robots over the last ten years.

His novels include an advanced AI character struggling to understand its role in society and healthcare. Roger writes about AI in his novels and experiments with current AI tools in the writing process. He will share his perspective on the controversial role that AI is playing in writing and other creative professions.

Roger’s experience spans healthcare, defense, and intelligence industries. He spent the last ten years working exclusively with surgical robots and performing experiments to determine their contributions to improving surgical performance.

Dr. Roger Smith has over 30 years of experience creating new technology solutions for large organizations. He holds two doctoral degrees and three master’s degrees that span business, computer science, and mathematics.

The first twenty years of his career addressed defense and intelligence problems and last ten years focused specifically on surgical robots in healthcare systems. Currently, he leads a consulting company focused on robotics, AI, and simulation in healthcare. He was previously a Chief Technology Officer at AdventHealth System; CTO for U.S. Army Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation; and a VP and CTO for Titan Corp. As part of this career, he published over a dozen nonfiction books on technology, business, and innovation topics.

He is currently writing fiction that explores advanced medical devices, applications of AI, and new forms of simulation in the future. These describe the technology, but more importantly, they speculate on the impacts that these might have on surgeons, patients, the healthcare system, and society.

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