Medical Assisting Meets Da Vinci
May 8, 2019
Northern Inyo Hospital Welcomes BUHS
A few weeks ago a very lucky group of students got the opportunity to go to Northern Inyo hospital to use a surgery robot called the DaVinci SI. The Northern Inyo Hospital gave the students the opportunity to do this. The hospital has done over 200 surgeries with the robot.
On this field trip, students were allowed to work the robot, practicing doing little skills with it. One student said, “My experience with the robot was very eye-opening because it gives us a lot of insight on how surgeons were able to perform surgeries before the DaVinci which was strenuous for them while the DaVinci gave them more mobility.” Everyone enjoyed the robot and they ended up staying there longer than intended because everyone wanted a chance to use the robot.
The concept of the robot may be a little confusing, the robot itself wasn’t really doing the surgery, it was just assisting the surgeon. The way it worked was by being an extra set of hands for the surgeon, the doctor would create about three little ports that they would insert the robot through. After the robot is inside the Surgeon controls the robot from the outside without actually having to manually open up the patient. This is much better than regular surgery because the invasiveness of the surgery is much less than the normal surgery. After the surgery with the robot, the patient will only be left with around a 2-inch long scar but, with regular surgery, the scar can be much bigger. The recovery time is also immensely shorter, some people even go home within the week.
This was an amazing opportunity and BUHS thanks everyone involved for the once in a lifetime experience.
