John McNelis MD FACS FCCM Chairman Department of Surgery
There were 100 robotic assisted surgeries in 3 months, does that exceed your expectations? That’s about what we projected. It’s a new technology so we wanted to start slow but we have been ramping up. What sort of surgeries are we doing? We have used it in general surgery that includes hernia surgery, bariatric surgery, low pelvic surgery, thoracic surgery and gynecologic surgery. In the future, we plan to open up programs in urology and colorectal. We of course offer these surgeries now but the benefits of the robot are we can see three dimensionally, we have advanced magnification of those areas, and we can get into areas that we may otherwise have limited visibility for. What does the robot look like? The robot has four arms that the surgeon can control from a console in the room. It’s important to note the robot isn’t independent or sentient; it’s basically advanced laparoscopic surgery. Only a surgeon can guide the arm. In essence, its similar to the AI we have in our cars now. There are safeguards build in, helping prompt the surgeon for where your tools are located and providing additional instructions. The surgeon is still very much “running the show”. Where do you see this robotic care expanding to in the near term here at Jacobi? Urology, prostate surgery, kidney surgery, and surgery for low rectal tumors. In particularly, this device will play a critical role in helping to make our prostate care more efficient and expansive. That directly helps our patients as we do not need to refer out more complicated cases. Approximately, how many surgeries are now using this robot? In an average week we do 120 cases, right now, maybe 12 are using the robot. So about 10%. For the average employee, who maybe doesn’t work in surgery, what do they need to know about this device? That its here and that it was a major collaborative effort between the medical department, the surgeons, Nursing, Engineering, Buildings, the I.T. Department, Anesthesia, Infection Prevention, Housekeeping, and our Administration. Also the nurses were critical in helping stylization, equipment, and preparation, of the machine.
November 2023
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