Gilberto Lopez, 60, of East Chicago, appreciates that he lives close to his care team.
Lopez had a tumor removed from his right lung in April 2019 and from his left lung one month later by Jason Frazier, MD, a cardiothoracic and cardiovascular surgeon, before beginning chemotherapy in the Cancer Center in July.
“The tumor on my left lung was hidden, so a wire was inserted to help guide the doctor to the spot,” Lopez recalls. “One half hour later, I was taken to surgery to remove the spot. Everything was excellent, the surgery, the care, the doctors, the staff, everything.”
With the daVinci® Surgical System robot, complex surgeries using a minimally invasive approach under the control of a surgeon from a console has broadened the breadth of cases that are being performed at St. Catherine Hospital. Enhanced robot-assisted surgical procedures available include soft tissue procedures and general surgery for prostate cancer, cardiothoracic procedures, urologic applications, total or partial kidney removal, gallbladder removal, hernia repair, colon resection, colitis, hysterectomy and other gynecologic laparoscopic procedures.
The surgeon sits at the console and operates the robot’s controls while looking into a stereoscopic monitor that provides a magnified 3-dimensional view of the surgical site and fingertip precision on movement.
The device with wristed instrumentation that mimics the wrist of the surgeon makes surgical procedures more efficient than ever for difficult and complex operation such as the Whipple procedure to remove tumors in the pancreas and reconstruct a large part of the gastrointestinal tract.
Patients who are candidates of robot-assisted surgery frequently have a shorter recovery time, less pain, fewer complications and shorter hospital stays,” says Lori McBride, RN, director of Surgical Services.
St. Catherine Hospital is planning to expand its surgical coverage significantly in 2020 in cancer, cardiothoracic, urology and orthopedics care. Surgeries like total knee replacement which once kept patients in the hospital for many days are now being performed in a minimally invasive way getting patients on the road to recovery sooner.
To learn more about surgical services available at St. Catherine Hospital, visit COMHS.org/services-surgery.
