Using a robot to perform mastectomies, a New Jersey surgeon sets off a firestorm over surgical outcomes

Last August, Stephen A. Chagares, a breast surgeon, made an announcement that startled some of his colleagues at New Jersey’s Monmouth Medical Center. At internal meetings and in a press release, Chagares declared that he would perform a robotic mastectomy—a new and relatively untested minimally invasive surgical procedure. According to the press release, his first patient, Yvonne Zucco, 56, was being treated for stage IIa breast cancer.