If surgery could be transformed into an arcade game, it might look a whole lot like the equipment that paid a visit last week to Providence Medford Medical Center.

Surgeons sat in a chair, guiding tiny tools with their hands, wrists and fingers, watching the instruments on a three-dimensional TV screen inside a darkened console. They sewed sutures in artificial skin, inserting needles and tying knots with instruments not much bigger than the sharpened end of a pencil.

"It does things my hands can't do," said Dr. Daniel Laury, a gynecologist who dropped by the hospital to try his hand at the computer-assisted surgical equipment.

Providence brought the equipment to town to give surgeons an opportunity to test-drive it, said Tom Hanenburg, chief executive for Providence Health System's Southern Oregon region. If the equipment makes treatment more efficient and physicians are willing to incorporate it into their practice, then Providence will consider acquiring the $1.6 million system, he said.

Computer-assisted surgery is a refinement of minimally invasive surgery, a general term for the technique in which physicians make several small incisions rather than one large opening. Surgeons insert instruments into the small incisions to operate, then withdraw them and close the incisions. Patients generally recover more quickly, leave the hospital sooner, and have less pain than they would from one large incision.

Advertisement

Computer-assisted surgery gives physicians better views of their work and more precise tools, said Sonia Lutarewych, a sales representative for California-based Intuitive Surgical Inc., which manufactures the system it calls da Vinci, after the noted Italian artist and inventor.

Lutarewych said computer-assisted surgery was introduced in 1999 as a tool for cardiac surgeons, but other physicians saw its potential in their specialties, too. It's gained popularity among gynecologists and urologists as well.

The equipment's hand-eye interface helps surgeons use skills they already have, rather than learn new techniques, said Dr. Tim Driver, a urologist who tested the gear.

"I was actually surprised at how easy it is to do," Driver said.

Driver said the equipment's precision controls makes it especially useful for surgeries such as prostate removal. He said some of his patients have traveled outside Southern Oregon to have prostate surgery at hospitals in Portland that already have computer-assisted surgery equipment.

Similar equipment also is installed at hospitals in Eugene and Sacramento.

"I think the number of prostatectomies we do here in the Rogue Valley would warrant" having a computer-assisted surgery unit, Driver said. "I think we'd do more prostatectomies if we had it."

Hanenburg, the Providence administrator, said it would be several months before the hospital decides whether to acquire the equipment.

Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492 or e-mail bkettler@mailtribune.com.