BRYAN, Texas — Dr.Rodrigo Campana has only been with St. Joseph Regional Hospital for a few months, but he has already performed the first robotic thoracic surgery in the Brazos Valley.
"Previously, and what my partners have done, is doing a sternotomy, so opening up the chest completely, cutting through the rib cage, opening it up, exposing the heart and everything else," Dr. Campana said.
"With the robot, we just made four small incisions, actually three incisions, and we were able to take it out through those three small incisions.”
Using the DaVinci Surgical Robot makes the procedure a lot less invasive, a lot safer, has a shorter recovery period, and allows patients to stay closer to home.
“The goal would be to bring all the patients that normally would be sent to Houston for something specialized and have them be able to have that done here in College Station,” Dr. Campana said.
In the Brazos Valley, the DaVinci Surgical Robot has been used in lots of other surgeries, like bariatrics, but never something as complex as thoracic surgeries.
“I definitely wanted to bring the technology that the robot brings into the thoracic surgery world and into this local community,” Dr. Campana said.
He and the DaVinci Robot performed the first thoracic surgery Oct. 11, and have already performed a second one since then.