1,000 Robotic Surgeries Celebrated At St. Joseph's

RIVERVIEW, FL — St. Joseph’s Hospital-South in Riverview recently performed its one-thousandth robotic surgery, hospital officials said.

Robotic surgery provides enhanced vision and improved surgical access compared to conventional minimally invasive surgery or traditional open surgery, officials said.
Medical staff said a robot navigates a precise approach to areas that traditional surgical instruments are unable to reach.

The surgeon operates the robot from a console that has four interactive arms and a high-resolution screen that projects 3-D images of the surgical site. The surgeon manually operates the instruments utilizing their hands and fingers. When the surgeon moves, the instruments respond precisely to those movements in real time. The instruments work identically to the movement of a human arm, human elbow and a human wrist, however with an enhanced range of motion.
Other benefits of robotic surgery used by St. Joseph’s Hospital-South surgeons include:

• Precise surgical incisions, allowing unhealthy tissue to be removed without affecting surrounding healthy tissue
• Smaller incisions that prevents less trauma and pain to a patient’s body
• Smaller incisions that alleviates blood loss and lowers infection risk
• Robotic surgeries may result in a shorter length of stay in the hospital
• Recovery from robotic surgery may be quicker due to smaller incisions
• Smaller scars result from robotic surgeries

At St. Joseph’s Hospital-South robotic surgeries are performed in gynecology, gynecologic oncology, urology, colorectal, thoracic and general surgery.
“Congratulations to our surgical team and surgeons who all worked together to reach this milestone,” said Phil Minden, St. Joseph’s Hospital-South president Phil Minden. “I’m proud of our team and BayCare for providing the resources that allows us to deliver high quality care to our community.”