da Vinci Si HD® Robotic Surgery
The da Vinci Si HD® Surgical System at Phoenixville Hospital offers advanced technology that provides surgeons with an alternative to both traditional open surgery and conventional laparoscopy. By putting a surgeon’s hands at the controls of an advanced robotic platform, surgeons can perform minimally invasive procedures that use smaller incisions that can potentially help reduce complications. This means you can get back to your life and loved ones sooner.
Phoenixville Hospital is proud to have 14 experienced robotic surgeons. The Robotic Surgery Center at Phoenixville Hospital was the first in Chester and Montgomery counties with the da Vinci Si HD® Surgical System.
Since opening in 2007 under the direction of Pankaj Kalra, M.D., Medical Director, Phoenixville Hospital’s Robotic Surgery Center has been the site of more than 1,200 robotic-assisted surgeries including:
Benefits for Patients
Robotic-assisted surgery may offer several benefits for patients:
- faster recovery and return to normal daily living activities
- less blood loss and fewer transfusions
- less pain and post-surgery scarring
- lower risk of infection
- less time in the hospital than with traditional surgeries:
- With robotic hysterectomies (removal of the uterus), the patient’s average hospital stay after surgery is reduced by nearly 60 percent.
- Robotic prostatectomies (removal of the prostate gland) can possibly reduce hospital stays by about one-third, cut blood loss in half and reduce narcotic pain medication use by nearly 20 percent.
- 63 percent of robotic prostatectomy patients need only half the dose of narcotic pain medication.
How Does Robotic-Assisted Surgery Work?
Working from a computer console, the surgeon makes dime-size incisions and guides the robotic arms with attached instruments and a tiny camera through the incisions. There is also an assistant surgeon, anesthesiologist and an operating room nurse by the patient’s bed, along with the robotic equipment.
From the computer console, the surgeon looks through a camera that can magnify the organs and other structures inside the body by 10x. Most laparoscopic surgeries provide doctors with 4x magnification. The movement of the surgeon’s fingers is transmitted (via the computer console) to the instrument tips on the other robotic arms, mimicking the movements of the surgeon’s hands and wrists. This gives the doctor an ambidextrous capability and surgical precision.