Robotic-Assisted Surgery with Dr. Keith Meslin, Virtua Health
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00:00Hello, I'm Nicole from 92.5 XTU and Marissa from 93.3 WMR, The Preston and Steve Show.
00:07And welcome to Virtua Stay Well Health Chat.
00:11And today we are talking to Dr. Keith Meslin, Chief Colorectal Surgeon at Virtua Health.
00:16He's also the Assistant Professor at the Rowan Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine.
00:22Welcome, doctor.
00:23Thank you so much.
00:24You know, that was just a mouthful, even though you do everything on the other end.
00:31That is true.
00:32My father's the dentist.
00:34Oh, is he?
00:35Yeah.
00:35That's funny.
00:36My dad, every time he got a colonoscopy, he always would joke that he was like, oh, got to win for brain surgery.
00:43Oh, dad jokes.
00:44They never get old.
00:44Exactly.
00:46Now, can you start by explaining the difference between robotic-assisted surgery and the minimally invasive surgery?
00:53Are they the same?
00:55What's laparoscopic?
00:56I feel like we hear these terms all the time and we may not totally grasp them.
01:01The term minimally invasive surgery is kind of a blanket term of doing surgery with smaller incisions.
01:08Under minimally invasive surgery is laparoscopic surgery, which started out as minimally invasive surgery using smaller holes and cameras to do surgery.
01:21And robotic surgery takes laparoscopic surgery to another level, where with advanced technology, you're using better instruments where you can do more things minimally invasive with improved cameras and improved toys and tools.
01:42So, you can do more things that you couldn't do minimally invasive with laparoscopic.
01:48I like, so it's like this and then this and then this.
01:52It kind of goes like that.
01:53Correct.
01:54Or like this.
01:55It's like blanket, a little bit more, and then all of a sudden it's very right there.
02:01Yeah.
02:02Yeah.
02:02And so, you, the surgeon, and I think it's important to talk about like the surgeon actually controls the robot.
02:09It's not like you just say, hey, robot, operate on the patient.
02:16Correct.
02:17Yeah.
02:17So, everything is controlled by the surgeon.
02:19Yeah.
02:19That is the biggest layman's terms that we just did.
02:22Boop, boop, boop, boop.
02:22I'm going to run you prok in.
02:24Have fun.
02:25Getting those polyps out.
02:26well since you are there and you are controlling it we just want to reiterate that to be sure
02:34um what are the main benefits of receiving robotic assisted surgery sure so you know uh as i said
02:40it's been advanced from laparoscopic surgery and and the advanced technology one lets you do things
02:47minimally invasive that you might not be able to do fully minimally invasive with laparoscopy so
02:53for example with laparoscopic surgery you might be able to do part of the surgery minimally invasive
02:59and part you have to do through a small incision but with the technology with the robot i can
03:04essentially do the entire surgery minimally invasive and the only incision that's made is to get the
03:11piece of the colon that i'm removing out and with that there's much less pain smaller incisions less
03:18complications infections and people really are recovering much faster getting out of the hospital
03:25faster yeah so you are one of one of the first colorectal surgeons in the region to start using
03:31the robotic technology so snaps to you that's amazing and um you've performed over 1 000 robotic
03:39colorectal surgeries so like you were saying how does that compare to old ways and i think that you
03:45said that a little bit but before it was a typical just incision right and now it's a much i don't
03:53want to say simpler way but like less yeah i mean advanced thank you more advanced way yeah so now um
04:00so you know even since that time now i've done over 1200 cases and and i started doing robotic
04:07colon surgery in 2010 and at that time i was the first colon surgeon in the philadelphia area and
04:14southern half of new jersey to do it and there were very few people in the country doing it it was
04:18just always an interest that i had to be involved with the technology so since that time we've gone
04:24through three you know reiterations and improved robots um and so the technology has dramatically
04:31changed even robotically uh to the point i can now do essentially everything robotically that i could
04:39do open uh where i couldn't even do it minimally invasive you know previously with laparoscopic and
04:46and with that i said you've seen dramatic improvements with um the length of the surgery
04:52have dramatically decreased the complications have decreased patients used to be in the hospital with
04:58minimally invasive surgery for maybe three or four days now most of the time they're leaving in two
05:02days and they're just really back to feeling normal um dramatically uh faster than they used to
05:09wow how has the technology changed in that time one is the uh visualization so the the imaging now it's
05:17three-dimensional so uh you have full depth perception uh versus you know like your flat screen tv is
05:24two-dimensional um so you're able to see better uh with the technology you're able to do much finer
05:31movements in small spaces with the amount of instruments they have now you can you have so many more
05:36choices of what you need to do to get the surgery done uh and you know when you look at surgeons
05:42there's always a chance of having to convert to an open surgery and now with the robot and how many
05:48cases i've done uh the chances of not being able to do robotically are well less than one percent so
05:54uh the patients are you know able to get it done minimally invasive now so what should we know about
05:59choosing a surgeon if we want a robotic surgery like other different training certifications like how do we
06:05know how to go about that sure so uh you know initially when i did it i i said no one was really
06:11doing it so i had to go to like with the pig lab or flying around the country to see people who were
06:17doing other types of surgeries robotically now the robotic surgery because it's become more mainstream
06:23is part of the training so uh general surgeons and colorectal surgeons are getting that part of the
06:29residency and training programs so it's more built in so it's much easier for them to gain experience
06:34um but obviously uh with experience you know has improved outcomes and and there's many studies
06:40that show you know people who do higher volumes uh have better results shorter surgeries and less
06:46complications wow now what are all of the robotic surgeries that you guys are doing at virtua
06:52so when i started in 2010 virtua is uh extremely supportive of what i wanted to do and we had one robot in
07:00mount holly so now i couldn't even tell you the number but now we probably um have close to 20
07:07robots across all the hospitals so uh robotic surgery has become more mainstream uh in my group i have
07:15five colorectal surgeons and i've gotten them all trained in robotics now and at virtua itself
07:20uh we do general surgery where they do gallbladder removal hernia repairs they do bariatric surgery
07:29robotically uh the gynecologists do hysterectomies robotically urology does prostatectomies um it's
07:37even expanded to orthopedics and it's a different type of robot but they use robotic surgery now at
07:42the joint center uh to assist in their joint replacements as well that's why we love these
07:47conversations and meeting virtual health doctors i mean because everybody can benefit from these
07:53conversations and from the team there virtual well yeah and that's why we like to break it down
07:57in very simple terms you know what i mean and just be like because i think a lot of people get
08:02overwhelmed with all the terminology and like knowing what to ask for and but i think when you tell
08:08people like listen this is why science is cool because it's always moving and learning and there's
08:14always the goal is to always make your experience easier and faster and more effective you know what i mean
08:22virtuos does this so effortlessly that um we love to you know bring that to the masses to explain how
08:28great that is yeah no virtuos been extremely supportive i mean i've been here 16 years now
08:33they've been so supportive of you know pushing the envelope and and helping to do what's best for the
08:38patients and you know obviously if you're going to use technology you still want the same ultimate
08:44results that you would have got during old school surgery but it's then you have the benefits of
08:49quicker recovery smaller incisions you know back on your feet faster on top of it i mean that's the
08:55huge benefit absolutely great well thank you so much for joining us today doctor this was so
09:01informative and so helpful and just really cool to hear how the technology has advanced over just a
09:07short span of time um and to meet somebody who was really at the forefront of it yeah we love smart
09:14people i appreciate it well to talk to dr meslin or anyone on his team or anybody there at virtual health
09:23just visit virtualhealth.org