Hospital says RFK Jr. did not operate robotic arm during heart surgery [View all]

Source: The Hill

05/14/26 2:48 PM ET


The Cleveland Clinic is pushing back on a report that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. operated a robotic arm during a patient’s heart surgery on a recent visit to the medical center, clarifying that he was merely an observer. “He briefly observed a robotic heart surgery as part of a broader tour, which included a demonstration using a disconnected teaching console that was unable to perform any surgical functions,” a spokesperson for the clinic told The Hill in a statement on Thursday. “He played no role in the patient’s care,” they added.

The explanation came after KFF Health News reported Wednesday that Kennedy “briefly tested the teaching console” of the clinic’s robotic hands “with a live patient splayed open for heart surgery in the room.” The article has since been updated to reflect the clinic’s statement. The tidbit sparked immediate online criticism, with one doctor describing the HHS chief’s presence in the operating room as a “horrifying and grotesque violation of HIPAA,” referring to the federal health privacy law.

“I’m curious how he was ever allowed in a functioning operating room to be begin with …,” Ian Fields, M.D., M.C.R., a urogynecologist, wrote in a post on social platform X. “So, the Cleveland clinic stopped mid-heart-surgery for a photo op with Kennedy. Was the patient’s heart exposed just sitting there while they stopped the surgery and let Kennedy play with the tools? Still sounds like a lawsuit to me,” another X user wrote.

The KFF reporter who joined Kennedy on his tour, Amanda Seitz, clarified in a follow-up post on X that multiple doctors continued working on the patient while they observed. “Then, Kennedy sat at the machine that controls the robotic hands with a surgeon,” she wrote. “Cleveland Clinic did not allow anyone to take photos/videos in OR.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5878628-hhs-rfk-jr-robotic-arm-heart-surgery/