Latest news with #VanGoethem
Chicago Tribune
30-07-2025
- Health
- Chicago Tribune
Northwest Health surgeons tout benefits of increase in robotic surgeries
With estimates that roughly 15% of all surgeries use robots, an open house Tuesday afternoon at Northwest Health Porter in Valparaiso was a timely opportunity for the public to try out the technology for themselves. The three-part DaVinci 5 Robotic System has been in use at the hospital for the past month. Bryttney VanGoethem of LaPorte rearranged her schedule so she could see it in person. 'My grandma is getting surgery done,' she said. 'We found out she has colon cancer.' General surgeon Jeremy Luedtke, whom the family will be meeting with in the coming weeks, has been using the DaVinci for the past three weeks and has experience with other robotic systems as well. He uses the robot for colon cancer surgery as well as inguinal hernia and gall bladder removal surgeries. He said the benefits are considerable, from less pain and recovery time to speed of surgery and lower cost. Luedtke said the robot, which is fully operated in real time by the surgeon, is generally less disruptive of tissue than human hands. 'I always joke with my patients. I say, 'Look at my hand,'' he says, splaying his meaty fingers. 'That amount of tissue manipulation (by the robot) reduces pain.' The DaVinci is a three-part system made up of a console at which the surgeon sits and manipulates the instruments via controllers; cameras and a screen fitted to the face; a tower that coordinates various cameras and insufflation, which is the filling of body cavities with gas so the surgeon has room to work and can see the interior of the body; and the robot, which is comprised of four arms. Many instruments can be fitted on the arms for a variety of surgical needs, though two of them are always used for insufflation and cameras. 'I have pared down the number of instruments that I use because it helps with setup and cost-saving,' Luedtke said. To highlight the improvement in recovery time patients can expect with robotic surgery, Luedtke gives an inguinal hernia repair as an example. A traditional surgery would require at least eight weeks of recovery with the patient restricted to lifting less than 10 pounds while being sent home with 30 narcotic painkillers. Robotic surgery reduces recovery time to four weeks with a lifting limit of 20 pounds and only three narcotic pills. 'A lot of times people are not even filling them,' Luedtke said of the drug. VanGoethem got a chance to sit at the console and control the robotic arms. It's a technology that was developed by NASA in the late '70s, Luedtke said. 'It was really neat,' VanGoethem said of the experience. Ten-year-old Addison Martin, of Valparaiso, got to try out the robot her dad, surgeon Andrew Martin, uses for general and bariatric surgeries at Northwest Health's Porter and LaPorte campuses. 'It was fun because it's like video games,' she said. Andrew Martin has been performing surgeries with robotics for the past five years. He said he employs robots in 60% of his surgeries. 'The things that we can use it for, we do, because it helps with patient recovery,' he said. 'We're still operating the robot. It's not like it's an autonomous thing.' There are some circumstances where robotics are contraindicated in surgery, such as when a patient has had many other surgeries that resulted in too much scar tissue, or cannot tolerate being under full anesthesia. James Fastero, clinical sales manager with DaVinci maker Intuitive Surgical, said the Porter campus has been using the DaVinci XI model since 2014. He said the indication of use has grown over the last 10 to 15 years for robotics in soft tissue surgeries. Fastero said robotic surgery is equal to or has surpassed laproscopic surgery frequency. The 'wristed' instrumentation of the robot is considered more agile than the 'straight stick' design of laproscopic devices. He said robotic surgery is more widespread in Northwest Indiana than people realize. The benefits don't stop with the patient, but also apply to the surgeon. 'They (the surgeons) can sit down. They can be more comfortable. They can have better vision and better instruments,' he said. Medical schools are also on board, turning out new doctors ready to hit the ground sitting down at those robotic consoles for many future surgeries. Fastero said 80% of all residency fellows complete their training with some experience on robots.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lake water improvement may not affect housing
May 9—MOSES LAKE — Owners of homes along the shore of Moses Lake may see an improvement in the view from their docks after treatment the water received last summer. "Last summer, the lake saw a major breakthrough in water quality and for the first time in recent memory: the Rocky Ford Arm made it through the entire recreational season without a single harmful algae bloom advisory," representatives of the water treatment company SePRO wrote in an email to the Columbia Basin Herald. The improvement was as a result of a treatment SePRO did to reduce the phosphorus in the water that feeds blue-green algae, said Ryan Van Goethem, a limnologist with SePR and the lead for the Moses Lake project. The treatment reduced the growth of algae in the project area within a couple of weeks by about 30%, he said. "The goal of this project is to reduce how much phosphorus is in the lake," Van Goethem said. "We did a treatment to the lake sediments in the upper part of the lake called Rocky Ford Arm. We treated about 2000 acres of the sediment to prevent phosphorus release from the sediment in the lake during the summer." Anybody who's lived in Moses Lake for any amount of time has discovered that our lake is a little different from mountain lakes like Chelan or Coeur d'Alene. Our lake is susceptible to blue-green algae, which both discolors the lake and can cause health problems for people and animals. That can affect the waterfront homes with yards sloping down into the lake. "I would have to think that if we had Lake Chelan water quality, we'd have much higher waterfront pricing," said Moses Lake real estate agent Alan Heroux. "Moses Lake is what it is; it's never been a clear body of water." Nonetheless, waterfront property is some of the most desirable, and thus highest-priced, land on the market, he said. "Average pricing for waterfronts is in the $800,000 range for active listings right now," he said. "So waterfront is by far most expensive property." Moses Lake, being part pf the Columbia Basin Project, is diluted somewhat by irrigation water coming in from Crab Creek to the east, Van Goethem said. The northwestern part of the lake is fed by Rocky Ford Creek and while there's some mixing with the irrigation water, it tends not to be flushed out as thoroughly. "What we found was, with the water that came into the lake last year, if we weren't doing this project and there was no treatment, the algae levels would have been twice as high," Van Goethem said. While the improvement in quality may make the water safer, Heroux said the draw of Moses Lake isn't based on its natural beauty so much as that it's a part of the community. "Moses Lake is what it is," he said. "If you can clean it up, that'd be cool, but we're not going to change what we locals do with the lake. We're still going to recreate. We're still going to play on it. We still love to live on it." That means lots on the lake aren't going to be driven up by people moving to the area specifically for the lake and pricing out local residents, he added. "A local market has to depend on the local people to be able to afford homes in that market," Heroux said. "It's when forces from outside come in and artificially drive up the market that things get crazy."
