Return to Research+Publications Smart News for the OR Minimally invasive surgery has been a boon to patients undergoing major operations. The minor incisions lessen pain, reduce hospital stays and speed recovery. The same benefits, however, cannot be claimed by the surgeons who perform the modern, high-tech procedures. Laboring in operating rooms that have remained largely unchanged over the past century, today's minimally invasive surgeons often must assume awkward and tense positions for hours while they manipulate endoscopic and laparoscopic cameras and instruments inside the patient and strain to watch their surgical progress on video monitors.		Dr. Elspeth McDougall, in a UCI Medical Center OR1, says the high-tech operating room helps the surgeon perform better.
"It's been said that after a laparoscopic procedure, the patient often looks better than the surgeon, and likely feels better, too," says Dr. Ralph Clayman, a pioneering laparoscopic surgeon who is chair of CUI medical Center's Department of Urology. "Surgeons performing minimally invasive procedures exchange the pain and suffering of their patient for their own." That's no longer the case at UCI Medical Center in Orange, home to two new surgical suites worthy of the 21st century. Each fully automated "smart" operating room, called OR1™, enhances the safety of the patient by boosting the comfort and efficiency of the entire surgical team. The cutting edge operating rooms, combined with the hospital's da Vinci™ surgical robot, are the heart of UCI's center for minimally invasive surgery. OR1 puts everything at the fingertips of the surgeons and nurses. All devices-monitors, lights, surgical cameras, gases, X-rays and other radiological images, telephone and computer hook-ups-are controlled from a touchscreen. Flat plasma screens can be positioned for the surgeon's optimum viewing and comfort. The multiple screens can be moved so that the surgeon can easily and simultaneously view several X-ray and endoscopic images that help to guide the surgery. Further, all equipment is suspended from the ceiling on special booms, allowing the doctors and nurses to move unimpeded and eliminating hazardous cords and wires. "OR1 represents one of the first efforts to improve the environment of the surgeon," says UCI urologist Elspeth McDougall. "This benefits both patient and surgeon." Further, each OR1 is outfitted with multiple cameras and the latest in communications technology, permitting images to be transmitted to pathology laboratories or doctors elsewhere for consultation, as well as to special conferences designed to teach other surgeons the latest techniques in minimally invasive surgery. "We can show the outside of the patient and where the surgeon's hands are moving the instruments, while we simultaneously show the view inside the patient," says Clayman. "It's a very powerful way of teaching. Indeed, the viewer actually sees more than the surgeon." Adds McDougall: "With this technology we are now able to teach doctors all over the world, and using OR1 we can do that more efficiently and more effectively than ever before."

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