Innovation in surgery keeps life exciting for Dr. Myers

I am sitting in the Reagan National Airport before leaving Washington, DC to return home to Columbus, Ohio after attending the 12th World Conference for Endoscopic Surgery.

As I reflect on my 25 years as a surgeon it is amazing to me how much the techniques of surgery have changed. The principles of tissue healing and infection control still are basically the same but how we do what we do is very different.

When I completed my surgery residency in 1985 nearly all operations were done through large incisions in the abdomen. The only laparoscopic operations were tubal ligations and viewing the pelvic organs. In 1989 a major revolution began to occur as surgeons began to use the laparoscope to do abdominal operations. First I learned to perform gallbladder operations laparoscopically then I, as well as many other general surgeons, learned to do other operations using minimally invasive techniques such as groin hernias, abdominal wall hernias, colon operations and stomach and small bowel operations.

Nearly 7 years ago I began to do bariatric operations and as I began I applied the laparoscopic approach pioneered by Dr.Allen Whitgrove from San Diego who reported the first in human laparoscopic Roux en-Y gastric bypass in 1995.
Now, although I restrict my practice primarily to bariatric surgery, even complicated revisions and bowel resections and other complicated operations are done with minimally invasive techniques. Today I can go months without doing an operation through a larger incision.

There are other skills we are acquiring as well to enhance the practice of surgery. For instance yesterday I learned to do video editing so I will be able to present digital videos of procedures to my patients, to other surgeons and to the public. Since nearly every operation I do is projected in High Definition on several TV screens in the operating room, it is a simple matter to record this digital information to be edited for later use. I would never have thought this would be an important part of a surgeon’s life but it is beginning to be so just like using the internet to communicate in forms such as this blog.

Today I spent the morning practicing on a new edition of the Da Vinci Surgical Robot. The new edition is very interesting and may bring additional value for our patients in less pain and quicker recovery. It may also be less wear and tear on their surgeon!

These 25 years have been an exciting ride with new innovations nearly every year and it continues even to this very day.

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