there is an element of haptic feedback with these surgery robotics so you can ‘feel’ what you are doing and how much resistance there is to your actions, imagine trying to cut next to an artery without being able to feel when you are about to cut into it until 100ms late for example

Exactly this. Only in the last few months haptic feedback is beginning to roll out on some instruments for the latest da vinci system, which is the most popular surgical robot of this kind (they did surgery on a grape). No other robots that I’m aware of have haptic feedback yet, and visual ‘haptics’ are all robotic surgeons traditionally have.

Minimal feedback is the main drawback of robots vs any other type of surgery, and increasing latency increases the risk of accidentally harming the patient. I’m sure 5G doesn’t necessarily have big spikes in ping which could be disastrous, but it’s riskier than the traditional cable directly connecting the surgeon to the robot in the same room