MercyOne Clinton Medical Center unveils new surgical robot
MercyOne Clinton Medical Center unveiled its new piece of cutting-edge technology on Wednesday.
CLINTON, Iowa — A new piece of surgical technology is now helping doctors at MercyOne Clinton Medical Center perform procedures with greater precision.
The hospital recently added the da Vinci Xi Surgical System.
“This has been a long journey for us to get the robot,” Chief Medical Officer Ashton Nickles said. “We’ve struggled with, you know, robots are expensive.”
The robotic system uses small instruments attached to robotic arms that can move in ways a human hand cannot.
“The arms of the robot can bend in ways that a human hand cannot through an incision that’s this big,” Nickles said.
“It’s not exactly a robot, in the sense that everything that happens is instruments that I control,” MercyOne surgeon Dr. Nathan Fierce said. “I control the camera. I control all the movements.”
Fierce said the technology helps improve his dexterity and visualization during surgery.
“It takes kind of my big hands and makes it into smaller, little hands,” Fierce said.
The technology is already making an impact for patients like Jami Lange, a nurse at MercyOne Clinton who also underwent a robotic-assisted procedure.
“I went to talk with Doctor Fierce, and he gave me the option of doing it robotically because Mercy was getting the robot, and I opted with the robot,” Lange said.
Fierce said the technology can help some patients return to their normal routines more quickly.
“She’s got a full-time job. She’s got kids at home and she’s busy,” Fierce said of Lange. “A patient like that, we do the surgery on her, she got back to work within a week, two weeks.”
Hospital leaders say the goal is to expand the number of procedures available locally and reduce the need for patients to travel elsewhere for care.
“This is one of the biggest wins we’ve had in a long time,” Nickles said. “It’s something that our community really should celebrate.”
