HARLINGEN — Jacob Little moved the master controller beneath the surgical console while he leaned deep into the Da Vinci Xi Surgical System.
“It’s pretty cool, something I’d never seen before,” said Jacob, 17, who’d journeyed to Harlingen Collegiate High School for the HCISD Medical Symposium held Wednesday morning.
“I didn’t know it was actually a thing until I got here,” said Jacob, a senior at the Harlingen School for Health Professions.
Jacob, an aspiring pharmacy technician, had used the master controllers to make two arms on a monitor pick up glowing objects with an almost liquid movement, yet with a precision most mysterious for its small detail.
“It’s really cool that they actually made this,” he said. “It was almost like Virtual Reality with the goggles, you’re just using two fingers.
He and his fellow HSHP classmates gathered around two of the robots in the main lobby of Collegiate High and tried their hand at the device.
Dr. Nolan Perez, a Harlingen School Board trustee and member of the UTRGV Board of Regents, spoke with great energy about the capabilities of Da Vinci.
“The cool thing about robotic surgery is that it’s the best technology that allows surgeons to improve their eyes and their hands by being able to see in different parts of the body in the most narrow areas of the pelvis,” Perez said. “Surgeons are able to operate in these little small spaces much more effectively with much less bleeding and much less nerve damage.”
He was even more excited about giving Harlingen students first-hand exposure to the equipment.
“We’re here today to provide our students in Harlingen sort of a first look at the latest and greatest technology for minimally invasive surgery,” Perez said. “The kids have an opportunity to not only see the instruments but get to use them just like the surgeons do in the operating room.”
The Da Vinci systems was developed by Intuitive Surgical in 1999, said Brandon Wheeler, area sales manager. Wheeler said the Valley currently has 15 of the machines at nine hospitals throughout the Valley. Valley Baptist has a fourth generation piece, while Harlingen Medical Center has a second generation.
Both provide a valuable service previously unavailable. Surgeons sign up to use the equipment and there’s always a long schedule. Perez hopes this kind of exposure will encourage more students to pursue their medical training – and careers – close to home.
“Talent is universal, but opportunity is not,” he said. “We are trying to provide these learning pathways to students to take advantage right here in Harlingen, so now these kids don’t have to go all the way to Houston to see this robot, you can become a doctor, a physician, right here in the Rio Grande Valley.”
Yaridia Trevino, a senior a HSHP, said she was “amazed.”
“I can’t wait to see what all the sessions hold for me and all of my classmates,” said Yaridia, who wants to be an orthopedist.
The symposium included separate sessions after the initial demonstration.
“I feel like all these machines they are coming up with are definitely going to help my career in particular, because it all about trying to be noninvasive,” she said.
