Medical residents from all over the country and members of the University of Virginia Health System community will be treated to a special demonstration
The patient console of the da Vinci Si Surgical System, the newest model of robotic surgery.
of the most cutting-edge, minimally invasive robot-assisted surgery currently available, when Intuitive Surgical, Inc. exhibits the newest model of da Vinci surgical systems on June 11 th and 12 th at the Prostate Center, 2 nd Floor, West Complex. Hours are noon to 7:00 pm on the 11 th and 8:00 am to 5:00 pm on the 12 th .
“Over the last seven years, we’ve performed more than 1,000 procedures using the da Vinci robot – with incredible successes,” says Noah Schenkman, MD, associate professor of urology in the UVA School of Medicine. “The benefit to our patients has been remarkable. With da Vinci surgery, patients experience less blood loss, pain and scarring because the incisions are extremely small. This minimally-invasive approach leads to less hospital and overall recovery time.”
Originally, the most common procedure UVA physicians performed using the da Vinci robot was the radical prostatectomy for men with prostate cancer, but the program has grown to offer robotic surgery for patients with prostate, kidney, testicular, bladder, urethral, and adrenal problems. And the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology now offers robotic surgery for a full range of problems from incontinence surgery to advanced surgery for gynecologic cancers such as uterine and ovarian malignancies.
“With the newest System, physicians can perform an even wider range of procedures
The surgeon console of the da Vinci Si Surgical System.
than ever before,” says Schenkman. “In addition to removing the prostate for cancer, physicians can perform complex procedures on the kidney, including removing cancerous tumors while saving the majority of the functioning kidney tissue. We can do advanced procedures such as removing the bladder and reconstructing the urinary tract – procedures that were not thought feasible even ten years ago.
“Though we have been doing robotic surgery here for seven years, the newest model offers significant advances including high definition images and the ability for two surgeons to operate simultaneously on the device,” Schenkman says. “This would allow us to perform a wider range of minimally invasive surgeries with maximum safety. We hope to bring this state-of-the-art technology to our patients at UVA Health System in the near future.”
