Workarounds can be done. In the Will Smith version of I, Robot, the robot saved Will's character over a child and the child died. So in real life we can add a rule that states, "A child's life must take priority over an adult's life regardless of the three laws in a life or death situation." Also robots cannot do things like firefighting or police work. A robot can work in an ER but cannot determine triage.
The Three Laws of Robotics are just the foundation. The problem in the novels and stories is that nobody added to them to prevent things like contradictions in robots which caused them to either go out of control or develop some kind of messiah complex(zero law).
