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DaVinci Robots: Elevating Surgical Care at Centra
While surgical technology is not new to Centra, thanks to generous contribution from the Centra Foundation, the addition of our fifth DaVinci robot has opened doors for surgical care. Join us in the operating room with Jen Drudy, Vice President of Perioperative Services, for an exclusive look at our fifth DaVinci robot and hear how it is changing how healthcare is delivered in our community.
What does this mean for patients? Shorter recovery times, better pain control, and improved outcomes compared to traditional surgical approaches. As we celebrate milestone achievements of our surgeons reaching their 500th robotic procedures, we invite you to discover how this technology is transforming healthcare delivery right here in our community. Follow our journey as we continue to expand access to world-class surgical care through innovation.
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Hi and welcome to, and so Much More. I am here with Jen Drude and we are obviously not in our studio because we are being introduced to Sentra's newest DaVinci robot, and so, jen, thank you so much for letting us come in here. I feel like this is sacred space and then showing us the ins and the outs of this particular robot, which is used for minimally invasive robotic surgery. So first tell us a little bit about you and what you do at Centra.
Speaker 2:So I am, by background, an operating room nurse and I here at Centra am the VP, or vice president, of perioperative services, so I oversee all of our surgical services arena. That includes the OR, obviously, pre-op and PACU, sterile processing, endoscopy and everything that goes under those umbrellas, and I've been an OR nurse for 18 years so quite some time.
Speaker 1:I love it. Have you been with center for all of those 18 years? No, I started here last September.
Speaker 2:Um and so just um, really saw the job as a growth opportunity, which is great for me, and came and interviewed and the team was such a wonderful fit. Um and I actually I went to JMU, uh, Harrisonburg, Virginia, so Lynchburg is very similar, JMU in Harrisonburg, Virginia, so Lynchburg is very similar and thought it would be a good fit for me, so wonderful.
Speaker 1:So you are very familiar with these robots, yes, um, and this is our fifth robot that we have, and so I know that each time we get a new one, there's kind of like a celebration internally because it is so great for our hospital system. But can you break down for those who are watching in our community about why that is so important and why this is such a good thing for them as a community member within this health system?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Robotic surgeries really become the standard for a lot of different surgical services, such as general surgery, gynecology, thoracic and urology. Those are probably the four big services that really use robots pretty consistently, and so for us we were having an access issue with the amount of surgeons that wanted to do robotic procedures and then the availability of having a robot for them to do that on, and so really getting our fifth robot and having it here at Lynchburg General has been so important because it opens that access to our community for procedures that they may not have been able to get done robotically before. The nice thing about robotic surgery is that it is minimally invasive, so there is a shorter recovery time, there's better pain control, you have a better visual field through the robot than you would laparoscopically, so it's easier for the surgeons to work with and just a better option for the patients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we have two here at LGH, like you just said, we have two at VBH and then one over at Southside. Correct, do all of the robots do the same procedures?
Speaker 2:They can. Yes, this newest one here at Lynchburg General is the DB5, which is the most up-to-date version of Intuitive's robot. So our other robots at um at uh here, vbh and Southside are called the um DaVinci XI, which is the previous generation.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is a big deal. Yes, and I know this week at the time that we're recording this anyway, the 500th surgery for Dr Alley using the DaVinci robots, correct. But then also next week, we're kind of sandwiched between two physicians who are going to hit that 500 mark, right? Yes, and so I know that Dr Charnuk is going to be hitting 500 surgeries. This is the machine that I'm assuming he'll be using. Yes, so why don't you show us just kind of, as we're sitting here, like what exactly are we looking at? Because for those of us who are not super familiar with surgery, it's hard to wrap our minds around how this does a surgery.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Happy to do that. So I'm going to move back a little bit so I can just show you. So this is the robot, the DV5 robot. Each one of these four arms are the surgical arms that are used during the procedure. When we do a robotic procedure, we will take the instrumentation which we call a robot arm and we'll put each different instrument in one of those slots arm and we'll put each different instrument in one of those slots. We then dock the robot up to the OR table and then onto the trocars that go into the patient and then the surgeon sits at what they call the surgeon console and they drive the robot from the console. So there are hand pieces that they can move the robotic arms around with as they sit at the console and they'll see it on a screen through the console and then the team in the room can see it on screens that we project the surgery.
Speaker 1:So they know what's going on. And I know you had mentioned that there's the opportunity for other surgeons to assist or come in and they can just do that by looking at a screen and be helpful in that way. Can you talk a little bit about?
Speaker 2:that? Yes. So they have an option called telepresence through intuitive DaVinci. It allows for other surgeons to basically dial in to the robotic tower and they can see what we're doing during the procedure and give real time feedback. They can even make suggestions, put things up on the procedure and give real-time feedback. They can even make suggestions, put things up on the screen and the physician that's operating can see that while they're operating. You can also. They have something called my Intuitive app so you can go back and re-watch your procedures to see if there's anything that you might want to do differently in the future. It helps when you're training new students. So if you have residents in your area and you're using the robot, it's a wonderful training tool to have them use that, because they can go back and re-watch those procedures and see how they can improve their technique.
Speaker 1:Now you were also telling me that this particular robot has just more thorough functionality in that it can move in ways that other robots cannot Correct. So can you talk about?
Speaker 2:that a little bit. So the new, uh, the newest version, the DV five, has something called um, like tactile touch or um feedback, and so the physicians can, uh, they, they call it force feedback. Okay, the physicians can they, they call it force feedback. Okay, the physicians can actually feel the tissue a little bit more. I'm going to call it real, as if you were touching it with your fingertips instead of an instrument. And then also it kind of does something where it will give you a vibration if you're kind of going out of an area or things like that. It gives you that cue, almost like your car gives you that cue, yeah, that lane assist.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so it has that as an option as well, and that's only in the newest version of the robot.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this not only addresses access, but this also makes available just a wide array of surgeries and I know that, um, that you mentioned before kind of the list of things that you do here, but this primarily will enable the general surgery column. So what really falls into that bucket?
Speaker 2:for those who are not familiar, so, um, with this new robot, we'll be opening up to some more of our general surgeons and then, specifically, our acute care service, which are our physicians that cover the emergency room procedures that need to be done. Okay, so that would include things like a laparoscopic polycystectomy, which is your gallbladder, but we're going to do it robotically. Same you can have your appendix out with a robot. You can have a hernia repaired with the robot, and then this will be a huge tool for Dr Sam, our cardiothoracic surgeon. He's going to start doing his thoracic procedures robotically, which is great because it is more minimally invasive than the video-assisted thoracic surgery, or that's called VATS procedure. So that it is more minimally invasive, there's better pain control and the overall recovery of the patient is a shorter time frame. So it's a wonderful option for our patients in this community that we did not previously have the ability to offer until we got the new robot.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, Jen. I appreciate your time. You're welcome. I know we're going to be talking about this a little bit more on 434 radio, which is here locally the mic show, so you guys can take a lookout for that and then check out on our website. We have more details about robotic surgery and the different areas that it will impact and is currently impacting. So thank you guys for joining us on and so much more.
