Children's Hospital

Robot Surgery At Children's Is No Science Fiction

Patients' Recovery Time Is Helped Exponentially

BOSTON (CBS4) ― Although it sounds like science fiction, robotic surgery is an everyday occurrence at Children's Hospital Boston and is getting patients back on their feet in record time.

Nathan Garcia, 7, of Acushnet had a urinary-tract infection that could have seriously damaged his kidneys.

"When I breathed, it hurt," he said.

Now, Garcia is back on the playground after undergoing robotic surgery. With traditional surgery he would have faced a fairly long recovery time, but just four days after robotic surgery, Garcia was not only home, he was playing baseball and scored the winning run in a recent game.

Children's Hospital surgeon Dr. Hiep Nguyen removed the obstruction in Garcia using robotic surgery. Sitting at a console, he showed CBS4 how it works. Nguyen delicately manipulated the tiny instruments and a mini-camera that were all inserted in the patient.

"Because the robot replicates your movements so well you feel like you're there. You feel as if you were inside the abdomen holding the organs or the tissues or the sutures right as you are working," Nguyen said.

Because the incisions are so small, patients suffer less pain, have shorter hospital stays and faster recoveries. Garcia has only five tiny scars.

Everybody who comes into this room is required to wear scrubs because the hospital wants to keep it as sterile as possible. Not only was Children's Hospital Boston the first pediatric hospital to get this technology but today, it does more surgeries of this kind than any other children's hospital in the world.

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