This is a monthly update on the growth of Robotic Surgery in my practice.
I passed the 2 year anniversary of my first robotic operation this past month (Dec 13th).
There have been amazing things that have been done since then. I have been able to perform “perfect” nerve sparing radical prostatectomies in as little as 46 minutes of console time. I have also developed new operations in 2006 including removing bladders and parts of prostates for BPH.
The overall robotic volume increased from 79 operations in 2005 to 180 operations in 2006 (128 percent increase) and the volume of dvPs increased from 59 to 143 (142 percent increase).
I believe 2007 will see another large increase in robotic surgeries and robotic prostatectomies. I believe the growth will be spurred by 3 factors.
The first is obvious. I am performing better surgery in higher volume. This leads to a larger public awareness of robotics and has almost 300 of my patients educating their primary care physicians, friends, and family members.
The second is the purchase of a davinci units by new hospitals. I will be soon performing robotic surgery on the first daVinci S in Morris county, NJ, at St. Clare’s hospital. I will likely be doing my operations with a friend of mine there.
Saint Barnabas hospital in Livingston will most likely soon purchase a robot as well. This has been my groups main hospital for many years now.
With this, I still plan on doing most of my robotic work at one of the nation’s top robotic centers at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.
The last reason is the successful recruitment of a urologist who is finishing his endourology fellowship at Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Brent Yanke. He will allow our group to offer 2 top robotic surgeons for years to come.