Students Participate in Intermountain Park City Hospital Robotic High-Tech Operating Room Experience

Utah students from Park City High School’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) recently got to try their hand with “Moose” — Intermountain Park City Hospital’s da Vinci XI robotic-assisted surgical system.

Intermountain Park City Hospital recently launched a robotic assisted surgery program for minimally-invasive general surgical procedures such as hernia repairs, gallbladder surgery, colon surgery, among others. The system can also be used to assist with minimally invasive urologic and gynecologic surgeries.

The Intermountain Park City Hospital surgical team has named the new robot “Moose,” after deciding the surgical arms looked like moose antlers, and because the moose is Park City’s unofficial mascot.

Students received an up-close and personal experience Wednesday, with the same system surgeons use for training, during a hands-on demonstration of “Moose.”

During the hands-on surgery simulation, students learned how the system works while unwrapping miniature candy bars and saw how math and science translates to career opportunities involving technology, engineering, and healthcare.

“The students in this program aren’t singularly interested physical therapy, but the broad spectrum of health care,” said Megan Shaw, a health science and Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) teacher from Park City High School.  “A lot of them are interested in surgery. This provides them an additional opportunity which is really what a CAPS program is designed to do.”

“They [the students] are getting prepared to do rotations in the spring and they will have an opportunity to hopefully observe surgery or at least have some sort of enrichment with that gives them introspective opportunity to reflect and see if this is for them or to see if they’re interested in in these kinds of robotic surgeries. We love our partnership with Park City Hospital.”

“My partners, Drs. Kate Smiley and Josh Morgan, and I are all really excited to be able to bring this technology to Park City Hospital”, said Danielle Adams, MD, FACS, department of surgery chair at Intermountain Park City Hospital. “We have always offered minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, but this system allows us an increased level of dexterity and precision.”

Though despite the term “robotic,” robots do not perform the surgeries. A surgeon performs the procedures using instruments that are guided via fiber linked console in the operating room.

The surgeon makes small incisions on the patient’s abdominal or chest area for placing ports for the camera and robotic arms. Once the robot is docked, and the instruments are guided carefully into the surgical field, and then controlled by the surgeon.

“It’s great for these students to see what hand-eye coordination is required of our surgeons,” said Kate Smiley, MD, general surgeon for Intermountain Park City Hospital. “There’s much greater dexterity with a robotic system than with conventional laparoscopic instruments, which makes it possible for us to do more challenging and complex operations with, ‘Moose,’ but minimally invasive.”

About Intermountain Health

Headquartered in Utah with locations in six states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Health is a nonprofit system of 34 hospitals, 400 clinics, medical groups with some 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health plans division called Select Health with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For more information or updates, see https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news.