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Students from Park City High School’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) participated in a high-tech robotic operating room experience at Intermountain Park City Hospital to get an up-close look and hands-on experience with robot-assisted surgery.
Intermountain Park City Hospital recently launched a robotic assisted surgery program utilizing the da Vinci XI robotic-assisted surgical system for minimally-invasive general surgical procedures such as hernia repairs, gallbladder surgery, colon surgery, among others. The system can also be used to assist with minimally invasive urologic and gynecologic surgeries.
“My partners, Drs. Kate Smiley and Josh Morgan, and I are all really excited to be able to bring this technology to Park City Hospital”, said Danielle Adams, MD, FACS, department of surgery chair at Intermountain Park City Hospital. “We have always offered minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, but this system allows us an increased level of dexterity and precision.”
The Intermountain Park City Hospital surgical team has named the new robot “Moose,” after deciding the surgical arms looked like moose antlers, and because the moose is Park City’s unofficial mascot.
Students received an up-close and personal experience Wednesday, with the same system surgeons use for training, during a hands-on demonstration of “Moose."
During the hands-on surgery simulation, students learned how the system works while unwrapping miniature candy bars and saw how math and science translates to career opportunities involving technology, engineering, and healthcare.
“The students in this program aren’t singularly interested physical therapy, but the broad spectrum of health care,” said Megan Shaw, a health science and Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) teacher from Park City High School. “A lot of them are interested in surgery. This provides them an additional opportunity which is really what a CAPS program is designed to do.”
“They [the students] are getting prepared to do rotations in the spring and they will have an opportunity to hopefully observe surgery or at least have some sort of enrichment with that gives them introspective opportunity to reflect and see if this is for them or to see if they're interested in in these kinds of robotic surgeries. We love our partnership with Park City Hospital.”
Though despite the term “robotic,” robots do not perform the surgeries. A surgeon performs the procedures using instruments that are guided via fiber linked console in the operating room.
The surgeon makes small incisions on the patient’s abdominal or chest area for placing ports for the camera and robotic arms. Once the robot is docked, and the instruments are guided carefully into the surgical field, and then controlled by the surgeon.
“It’s great for these students to see what hand-eye coordination is required of our surgeons,” said Kate Smiley, MD, general surgeon for Intermountain Park City Hospital. “There’s much greater dexterity with a robotic system than with conventional laparoscopic instruments, which makes it possible for us to do more challenging and complex operations with, ‘Moose,’ but minimally invasive.”
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Park City High School’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies students participated in a high-tech robotic operating room experience at Intermountain Park City Hospital