As I stated in my last post, I went to Hackensack New Jersey for a davinci robotic surgery training course this week. Since I am always talking about robotic surgery, I figured I would give a little course of my own. Seriously, if you want to see what I am talking about when I say "robotic prostatectomy", here you go. 
This is the general set-up for a robotic prostatectomy, courtesy of Boston.com. The surgeon (that's me), sits at the console and performs the surgery via the robot, which is that big thing towering over the blue drapes in the background.First the ports are placed into the patient by the surgeon, similar to any other laparoscopic surgery. Then once all the ports are in place, the robot is wheeled over to the patient and is attached to the ports. Long instruments are placed through this ports and they can be changed depending on what the surgeon needs.
A camera is placed through one of the ports. It actually has two lenses or cameras in one, so that the image the surgeon sees through the console is in 3-D. The image is magnified about 10 times normal so that all of the structures are very clearly visualized making surgery a lot more precise. This allows us to see vessels and nerves that are difficult to see during a regular surgery.
Finally, as you can see in this picture, we use two funny looking contraptions to operate and move the robot inside the patient. It allows better movement of the instruments than even our own wrists and fingers could. There are also 5 pedals that we use to do various things.
So, that's the robot in a nutshell.
We are expecting the biggest winter storm of this year in the next two days with snow accumulations of up to 16 inches by tomorrow afternoon. I just drove home from working overnight (yes, moonlighting!) and it's already starting to come down. I have to say, I love the snow. My feeling is, as long as it's going to be cold, there might as well be a pretty blanket of snow to go with it. I am traveling to the oh-so-exciting state of New Jersey tomorrow for a Davinci robotic training course and I just hope the weather doesn't interfere with my travel plans. My co-resident Jonah and I have to complete this training course prior to starting to work at one of the hospitals next year (this despite the fact that I have already done about a 150 robotic prostatectomys already at Strong Memorial, but who's counting) and it's been a nightmare to plan. I really hope we don't have to reschedule. Ahmad starts back to class today after winter break. Apparently here in the northeast it's quite common to have both a winter and spring break, the former I suppose so students can take skiing trips. We didn't go skiing this week, but we did attend a private piano concert performed by a friend of a friend which was spectacular. Michael Tan was the pianist and he trained at Juilliard and is now doing some post-graduate training at the Eastman School of Music here in Rochester. It was an amazing concert. 
Finally, Laura and Michaels daughter and our niece, is now crawling. Or scooting, as Mom described it. Here's a recent picture of her for those of you who haven't seen her lately (or ever!). I am a little biased (just a little...okay a lot!) but she's pretty darn cute, huh? Hopefully we will get back down to KY to see her soon.
A camera is placed through one of the ports. It actually has two lenses or cameras in one, so that the image the surgeon sees through the console is in 3-D. The image is magnified about 10 times normal so that all of the structures are very clearly visualized making surgery a lot more precise. This allows us to see vessels and nerves that are difficult to see during a regular surgery.
