A Georgia hospital recently made state history by hosting the first robotic weight loss surgery.
Doctors at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center performed a gastric bypass procedure using the newly installed da Vinci Surgical System. Like laparoscopic surgery, robotics uses only a few small incisions as ports for instruments and a miniscule camera, and at the same time fine-tunes the technical skills of the surgeon by enabling the surgeon to reach around corners and into tight spaces that are too big for fingers.
It works like this: The unit’s 3-D high-definition display and video-game-like controls allow the surgeon to see the patient’s organs directly – then, using the super-small, super-precise ROBOT hands, the surgeon performs the necessary cutting, suturing, and so forth by remote control. Since the robot-hands precisely mimic the movements of the doctor’s real-life hands and fingers, it’s as if the surgeon is inside the patient but can work with much greater precision.
Using the da Vinci Surgical System rather than performing an open incision gastric bypass can mean a shorter hospital stay for the patient, a quicker return to normal activities, significantly less pain, less complications, less blood loss and less scarring. Robotic weight loss surgery methods truly may reduce the risks of bariatric procedures for obese patients.
