The Beginning of a New Era in Surgical Innovation

St. Joe’s Surgeon Will Perform First Procedure with the da Vinci Robot

On Wednesday, March 28th, 2012, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton invited the media to meet their new Robotic Surgery Team and help to test‐drive the hospital’s newest piece of cutting‐edge technology…the da Vinci Si Surgical Robotic System. The da Vinci is heralded as the world’s most advanced surgical robot and St. Joe’s is on the cusp of beginning a new era in surgical innovation.

On Thursday, Dr. Bobby Shayegan, a renowned urologic surgeon and oncologist and the deputy chief of surgery at St. Joe’s, will perform the hospital’s first procedure with the da Vinci system. It will be a robotic‐assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy that is anticipated to take two and a half hours to complete.

“Thursday is going to be an exciting day for our Hospital, for our Robotic Surgery Team, and most of all, for the patients we serve,” says Dr. Shayegan. “The promise the da Vinci system holds for speeding healing in our surgical patients is  unquestionable. We are now able to perform major surgeries through incisions that are less than 12 millimeters in length. I feel privileged to work at a Hospital that is so committed to continually raising the bar in providing unparalleled surgical care to our region.”

Dr. Shayegan is one of five St. Joe’s surgeons who have been trained on the da Vinci system. His contemporaries include CMAS Founder and renowned tele‐robotic surgery pioneer Dr. Mehran Anvari, kidney transplant and oncology specialist Dr. Anil Kapoor,  Urologist Dr. Edward Matsumoto, and Bariatric Program Lead, Dr. Dennis Hong.

Initially, the robot will be used in research studies designed to determine how robotic‐assisted surgeries can improve the outcomes for patients undergoing urologic, bariatric and gastrointestinal procedures. In the future, St. Joe’s will be evaluating the role and use of the robot in the areas of head and neck surgery, gynecological surgery, and thoracic procedures.

With the acquisition of the robot, made possible by a $5 million gift from the Boris family (founders of Mountain Cablevision) in December 2011, St. Joe’s has joined the ranks of only 14 hospitals in Canada with this technology. It is the only hospital in the LHIN with a surgical robot, and is one of only three centres in Canada to host the dual‐console da Vinci system.