Most patients agree to surgery after one conversation, sometimes two. That’s not necessarily wrong — but it does mean a lot of decisions get made with less information than they deserve.
These are the five questions worth asking before you sign off on any knee replacement, robotic-assisted or otherwise. Not because the answers will scare you off. Because they’ll tell you a lot about the surgeon and the plan, and because you’re entitled to actually understand what’s happening to your own knee.
1. What does the pre-surgical plan actually show for my knee?
If robotic-assisted planning is involved, ask to see it — or at least have it explained in plain terms. Where is the implant positioned, and why that position for your anatomy specifically? A surgeon using a genuine pre-planning process should be able to walk you through this without reaching for jargon.
2. Why this implant, and why this size?
Implants aren’t one-size-fits-all, and a good answer here should reference your own bone geometry, not just “this is what we usually use.” This is exactly the decision RoboEye ER-style 3D planning is built to sharpen.
3. What’s realistic for my recovery, given my age and activity level?
Not the brochure timeline — your timeline. A 45-year-old former runner and a 70-year-old with a sedentary lifestyle are not on the same recovery curve, and a surgeon being straight with you will say so.
4. What happens if something doesn’t go to plan?
Every procedure carries risk. The honest answer covers infection risk, revision possibility, and what monitoring looks like in the weeks after — not a rehearsed line about how rare complications are. If a surgeon brushes this question off entirely, that’s worth noticing.
5. How many of these has this team actually done?
Fair question, and not an awkward one to ask. Experience matters more in orthopaedic surgery than almost anywhere else in medicine — the difference between a team that’s done a few hundred procedures and one that’s done tens of thousands shows up in outcomes, not just on a certificate.
Over 20+ years and 30,000+ orthopaedic procedures, the questions patients ask have gotten sharper — and honestly, that’s a good thing.
Dr. Bhanu Pratap Singh Saluja, Director of Orthopedics & Robotic Surgery, Park Hospital
None of these five questions are meant to create doubt. They’re meant to get you a clearer answer than “trust me.” A surgeon confident in their plan will welcome all five. That, more than anything else on this list, tells you what you need to know.