YAKIMA — Yakima has crossed yet another threshold in modern medicine. Regional Medical and Cardiac Center is now using robotics, the world’s most advanced tool in surgery.
This is more than just bragging rights for the hospital. It’s a chance for your family to experience the future of medicine.
We were all told is was coming. Gary Hodgkinson remembers, as a child hearing that one day, robots would perform surgery on all of us. He just never thought it would happen in his lifetime. But it has.
Hodgkinson is one of the first in Central Washington to have his prostate cancer cured by a robot.
“I hadn’t been tested in about four years, and all of the sudden boom, it’s full blown practically.”
This retired truck driver agreed with his surgeon that the Da Vinci robot would perform this surgery. The advantages have become almost too many to count.
Surgeon Jack Lovern explained, “The improvement over earlier models. There’s a fourth robotic arm. That allows us to have a much better view of the surgical field. There’s a higher degree of mobility with this technique than the human wrist. Probably one of the most dramatic advances is the camera attachment. That puts my eyes right next to the surgical site.”
The Da Vinci is about a lot more than bringing technology into the surgical suite. It’s about recovery, it’s about pain, it’s about convenience for the patient and it is definitely about money.
Hodgkinson will have his prostate removed one day and be home recovering the very next. Standard surgery required a one week stay at the hospital.
Dr. Lovern says it saves the patient and his insurer thousands, “And so if a patient is in there overnight instead of three to five days, that’s a distinct economic advantage.”
Instead of a typical surgery, Da Vinci allows the doctor to complete the procedure laparoscopic. Four small incisions will get the surgical tools and camera in and the prostate out. The patient leaves with Band-Aids not stitches.
Gary didn’t have to be talked into the procedure. “The pain and everything else is minimal. It’s a whole lot better than being laid open, a six or eight inch incision and having all the stitches and stuff like that.”
What we were told as children might have turned out better than our imaginations.
As he’s wheeled into surgery, Gary only has one concern. “The main thing I’m worried about is when can I get back on my motorcycle?”
It certainly has Gary Hodgkinson glad he lived to see robots in Yakima.
Less pain, faster recovery, fewer days in the hospital, and little it no scaring.
This is the future of medicine in Yakima and across the country.
Dr. Lovern says it costs the same as traditional surgery. But the shorter hospital stay will cut patient costs by the thousands.
