Scrub tech students at Great Plains Technology Center recently took a trip to Comanche County Memorial Hospital to see and learn a little more about one of the instruments they may be working with when they finish their program. They spent a morning learning more about how the Da Vinci Robot work. Doctor Michael Sawyer, a general minimally invasive surgeon at CCMH, said he uses the Da Vinci Robot for surgeries all the time.
“For us, it’s really, really, facilitated what we can do in minimally invasive fashion,” Dr. Sawyer said. “A lot of operations that would’ve required large incisions can now be down with several much smaller incisions leading to faster recovery and usually less post-operative pain.”
Livia Rocha, the director of the Surgical Technology Program at Great Plains Technology Center, said having this ensures the students get some experience with the robot.
“It helps them not be so intimidated by it,” she said. “It’s an amazing opportunity that the hospital has given us, to our students, to allow them to see it and then work with it in action.”
Erik Guerra, RNFA at CCMH, said before surgery, scrub techs, which is what these students are working to become, set up the room with the back table and all the instruments.
“Not only are the surgeons highly trained on the robot,” Guerra said. “But the RN circulators, the scrub techs, are trained as well, so we wanted to give back not only to our community but to the students specifically in order to get familiarized and trained on the robot here at Comanche.”
They started clinical’s on Wednesday, so depending on where they go, this could be something they get to learn more about.
“Hopefully, we will recruit them to stay here at Comanche and help our community out,” Guerra said. “But, also if they were to go somewhere else, they have that on their resume.”
CCMH gave the Surgical Technology program a wooden replica of the robot that an anesthesiologist at the hospital made. Students will be able to practice with it.