For the YouTube generation, video cameras are a way of life, always there to capture even the most mundane moments.
But in the operating room, the use of tiny video cameras to assist surgeons in complex procedures is still relatively rare.
One cardiothoracic surgeon at Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, however, is specializing in videoscopic procedures that reduce patient pain and speed recovery time.
Uttam Tripathy, M.D., has been performing video-assisted procedures at Methodist Sugar Land Hospital since 2006. But in recent months, he has expanded the role of videoscopy in chest surgery to bring its benefits to even more patients.
Using a small three-inch “utility incision,” Dr. Tripathy inserts surgical instruments – including a small camera – into the patient’s body and manipulates them via two to three other, smaller one-inch incisions. The incisions provide easy access to the chest cavity and the video camera serves as the surgeon’s “eyes.”
The benefits for patients are numerous, because the overall impact is far less invasive and less painful than the traditional method of chest surgeries, which involved making a large incision and spreading apart the ribcage.
“The pain and long recovery times associated with chest surgeries were almost exclusively the result of opening up and spreading the rib cage,” says Dr. Tripathy.
“With videoscopic surgery, the rib cage stays intact, and as a result, recovery is shortened dramatically, pain is reduced and the transition out of the hospital is much faster.”
Dr. Tripathy and his dedicated team of nurse professionals recently performed a video-assisted lobectomy on Julia Strezelecki, 79, to remove a small portion of her lung which contained an early-stage tumor.
Within two days of undergoing the four-hour procedure, Strezelecki was back at home and had resumed her normal routine.
“I am breathing well, walking around and doing chores,” she said.
“Everything is back to normal. Dr. Tripathy and his staff were wonderful and the procedure itself was easy for me to handle.”
Dr. Tripathy also uses videoscopic techniques for a wide range of other cardiothoracic surgeries, including lung biopsies and fluid drainage – procedures that previously were unnecessarily invasive.
“We can quickly and easily perform these procedures with minimal impact to the patient,” he says.
The role of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) is appreciated by the pulmonologists like Dr. Bhadresh Shah who referred Julia Strezelecki to Dr. Tripathy.
