“This blew my mind the first time I heard it,” Hughes said. “They removed a woman’s gall bladder through her navel. And she was home the next day: minimum loss of blood, minimum scarring. It’s a robotic platform, and there are four arms on the device, and one of them is a high-powered camera. The doctor sits across the O.R. at a console and it looks like some sort of a game he’s playing. He’s moving his arms and legs to control the robotic arms. At that console, he gets a better view of the area he’s operating on than he would if he were standing over the patient. It’s high-tech future now.”
Word spread quickly at Saint Francis thanks to a deliberately public introduction of the new technology in the lobby of the hospital’s atrium last June. “I was standing behind some people, and this couple got off the elevator and the guy says to me, You have one of these now?” Hughes said. “And I said, Yeah, and he turned to his wife and said, Well, we won’t have to go to Albany after all.”
Ping described a non-invasive, single-incision surgery performed by Dr. James Nitzkorski in an oncological procedure.
“He went right into the person’s belly button and was able to remove a tumor through the person’s belly button,” Ping said. “He showed the before-and-after pictures, and you don’t even realize the person had surgery. It’s very cool. Those are things people would have had to have left the community for to get those services. And now we’re attracting a high caliber of physician to this area, and people are staying in the area.”
