LEWISTON — Welcome to the future of medicine. On Friday, it was parked at Central Maine Medical Center, a massive traveling van filled with the latest in surgical gadgetry. Although at first glance, it would be easy to mistake it for a video arcade.
Or possibly a diner.
On one side of the room are surgical training stations, featuring small devices where surgeons can manipulate the newest tools of the trade and watch their progress in a monitor overhead. Tiny clamps snap down on beans masquerading as polyps. A surgeon, manipulating a pair of devices that look like beefed up barbecue lighters, uses the pistol grips to pluck up a small stick and tenderly thread it through a circle the size of a button.
On the other side of the room, a few slabs of steak sit on a tray. But it's not lunch. The meat is used to demonstrate a LigaSure device that can incise the steak and lay down neat rows of titanium staples on either side. If this were a real operation, rended human tissue would have been sealed off efficiently so surgeons could continue their work inside the body.
Welcome to the Covidien Innovation Tour where, advances in Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery are on exhibition. On Friday, the tour came to Lewiston during a 90-city sweep of the country.
At CMMC, surgeons had the opportunity to see what the future holds and to begin getting comfortable with the latest and greatest.
"It's state of the art," Chief of Surgery Jamie Loggins said, "and beyond."
At the training stations, a surgeon — or a reporter trying to fake his way through — works the hand-held devices sticking from one "multiple instrument access port." If this were a human body, that port would be inside the belly button. In single incision surgery, that's where surgeons enter the body. Traditionally, this type of surgery requires four or even six incisions across the abdomen.
"One obvious benefit," said Covidien Surgical Device Specialist Vincent Palange II, "is cosmetic."
No scarring, in other words. Traditionally, patients who undergo invasive procedures of this nature come away with a small archipelago of scars.
When you first see a surgeon operating this way — using multiple instruments through one port — it seems like a skill that would be immensely difficult to develop.
"It's like watching Tiger Woods golf," Loggins said.
Yet, a surgeon used to working multiple instruments across several openings will likely find the new way more efficient. The equipment is designed to be faster, more precise and less dangerous for the patient.
"The dexterity we lose in our hands," Loggins said, "has been made up for in the instruments."
Loggins manipulates the instruments with smooth, fluid motions that suggest familiarity, his progress on display in the monitors above. Loggins, you might say, is the Tiger Woods of this faux surgical theater.
But Palange is no slouch, either. A Lewiston native who works at CMMC, Palange is also a surgical device specialist with Covidien. He is the point man between Covidien and the local surgeons. He knows this equipment as intimately as anyone.
Palange demonstrates the LigaSure surgical staplers, guides his visitors through the training stations, and lays down staples into chunks of beef like a pro.
But his greatest enthusiasm comes when he's showing off the iDrive Power stapler. It's a gadget that hums deeply when you hold it. It neatly closes human tissue like the others, but this one is more advance. This one senses when an area of the human body requires a shorter stapler or a longer one.
This technology is strikingly faster than making incisions, applying clamps and repeating over and over for the duration of an operation. Speed isn't the first goal, Palange says, but it's an important one.
"Anything they have to do that takes extra time," he said, "there's that much more danger for the patient."
The technology has a wow factor. But both Palange and Loggins are each quick to point out one constant truth when it comes to medical advances: It's always evolving. As soon as a person gets comfortable with the latest, greatest innovation, something new is coming down the pike.
For now, Palange and the rest of the Covidien team are doing what they can to get surgeons around the country familiar with the technology. It's vital for their success as surgeons, of course. And in its way, it's fun — like playing games on the latest computer tablet or smart phone.
"It's the video game generation," Covidien Manager Leo Nunzioleo said. "And this is making surgeons better."
Or possibly a diner.
On one side of the room are surgical training stations, featuring small devices where surgeons can manipulate the newest tools of the trade and watch their progress in a monitor overhead. Tiny clamps snap down on beans masquerading as polyps. A surgeon, manipulating a pair of devices that look like beefed up barbecue lighters, uses the pistol grips to pluck up a small stick and tenderly thread it through a circle the size of a button.
On the other side of the room, a few slabs of steak sit on a tray. But it's not lunch. The meat is used to demonstrate a LigaSure device that can incise the steak and lay down neat rows of titanium staples on either side. If this were a real operation, rended human tissue would have been sealed off efficiently so surgeons could continue their work inside the body.
Welcome to the Covidien Innovation Tour where, advances in Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery are on exhibition. On Friday, the tour came to Lewiston during a 90-city sweep of the country.
At CMMC, surgeons had the opportunity to see what the future holds and to begin getting comfortable with the latest and greatest.
"It's state of the art," Chief of Surgery Jamie Loggins said, "and beyond."
At the training stations, a surgeon — or a reporter trying to fake his way through — works the hand-held devices sticking from one "multiple instrument access port." If this were a human body, that port would be inside the belly button. In single incision surgery, that's where surgeons enter the body. Traditionally, this type of surgery requires four or even six incisions across the abdomen.
"One obvious benefit," said Covidien Surgical Device Specialist Vincent Palange II, "is cosmetic."
No scarring, in other words. Traditionally, patients who undergo invasive procedures of this nature come away with a small archipelago of scars.
When you first see a surgeon operating this way — using multiple instruments through one port — it seems like a skill that would be immensely difficult to develop.
"It's like watching Tiger Woods golf," Loggins said.
Yet, a surgeon used to working multiple instruments across several openings will likely find the new way more efficient. The equipment is designed to be faster, more precise and less dangerous for the patient.
"The dexterity we lose in our hands," Loggins said, "has been made up for in the instruments."
Loggins manipulates the instruments with smooth, fluid motions that suggest familiarity, his progress on display in the monitors above. Loggins, you might say, is the Tiger Woods of this faux surgical theater.
But Palange is no slouch, either. A Lewiston native who works at CMMC, Palange is also a surgical device specialist with Covidien. He is the point man between Covidien and the local surgeons. He knows this equipment as intimately as anyone.
Palange demonstrates the LigaSure surgical staplers, guides his visitors through the training stations, and lays down staples into chunks of beef like a pro.
But his greatest enthusiasm comes when he's showing off the iDrive Power stapler. It's a gadget that hums deeply when you hold it. It neatly closes human tissue like the others, but this one is more advance. This one senses when an area of the human body requires a shorter stapler or a longer one.
This technology is strikingly faster than making incisions, applying clamps and repeating over and over for the duration of an operation. Speed isn't the first goal, Palange says, but it's an important one.
"Anything they have to do that takes extra time," he said, "there's that much more danger for the patient."
The technology has a wow factor. But both Palange and Loggins are each quick to point out one constant truth when it comes to medical advances: It's always evolving. As soon as a person gets comfortable with the latest, greatest innovation, something new is coming down the pike.
For now, Palange and the rest of the Covidien team are doing what they can to get surgeons around the country familiar with the technology. It's vital for their success as surgeons, of course. And in its way, it's fun — like playing games on the latest computer tablet or smart phone.
"It's the video game generation," Covidien Manager Leo Nunzioleo said. "And this is making surgeons better."
