Prostate Questions on KXAN
Newscaster: Surgery meant going under the knife. Then came the less invasive laparoscopic procedure. Now St.David's hospital is ready to unveil the latest in cutting edge technology. It's called robotic assisted surgery and it's available at the end of the month. KXANs Jim Brogomo explains in tonights healthcare.
Dr. Randy Fagin: Robotic surgery allows us to truly bring surgery to the next level.
Newscaster: Imagine a difficult operation where the surgeon won't touch the patient with a ten foot pole. that's not exactly the case here, but it's close. The daVinci surgical system allows the surgeon to sit ten feet away from the patient while thin laparoscopic shafts go to work inside the patient. It's like having two tiny surgeons wrists inside the body.
Dr. Randy Fagin: Unlike open surgery using instruments like scissors that only have to put on a hinge. And they go from outside of the body to inside of the body. Laparoscopically you are taking a little five millimeter instrument and putting it inside the body and do all the work inside with laparoscopic fine instruments. The robotics has the fine motion and the wrist counting inside its adds up...
Newscaster: Surgeons say robotic assisted operations result in less blood loss,faster recovery, and fewer complications for the patient.
Dr. Randy Fagin: It would be like getting Tiger Woods a set of golf clubs and letting him go out and play with my clubs on a course. He would still do fantastic but if you give him the best equipment even the hardest courses are no match.
Newscaster: Doctors using the Davinci surgical system are almost like airline pilots because they have to use their feet, eyes, and hands to control the mechanism.
Dr. Randy Fagin: Navigating through the abdominal cavity sometimes can be more or less challenging depending on the way a person was built. Because of the fine tuning of the robotic because of the risks inside of the belly cavity, it doesn't matter what is thrown in our way. We are able to use more precision to be able to get around those challenges, but you have to do the course easier.
Newscaster: St. David's will use the Davinci surgical system on a variety of abdominal and cardiac surgeries, but not heart bypass surgery.
Dr. Randy Fagin: It is being done, but we're just not quite there yet to make it a common place, but we're getting there.
Doctor: Hopefully as ten years, fifteen years, twenty more years pass, we'll become more factful, more in depth with this, and even proceed coronary bypasses, what Bill Clinton had. We'll be able to do a significant component if not all the components with three fourths of the devices.
Newscaster: Jim Brogamo KXAN news 36. For links to the daVinci surgical system and St. David's healthcare partnership log onto our website