Surgery's robotic future at Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital

DeKALB – Dr. Ricardo de Oliveira Soares only has been working at Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital for a week, but he is tasked with bringing the hospital into the new age and will begin performing surgeries using a robot in September.

Soares, 38, originally from Portugal, was hired because of his expertise in robotic surgery, and began training with his team on the da Vinci Si Robotic Surgery System on Friday. The robot, which takes up an impressive amount of space in one of Kishwaukee’s newly remodeled operating rooms, will allow Soares to perform nephrectomies (the removal of a kidney or kidney tumors) and prostatectomies (removal of the prostate).

“The scale of the work is way more precise,” Soares said Friday, donning scrubs with a team of nurses, including a scrub tech and a first assistant, to do the surgeries.

“The difference is, with the robots, you can get way less pain, way less blood loss, and patients are out of the hospital in less than 24 hours,” Soares said. “Every movement I do [using the machine] is a scale 10 times smaller than your own. It will control every little bit of tremor, small movement, and translate itself into a very small robot.”

The da Vinci is named after famed artist Leonardo da Vinci, whose study of human anatomy allowed him to create a pulley-driven knight considered the world’s first robot. It is widely used across the world, most commonly for prostate removal and hysterectomies.

The surgeon sits in front of a monitor away from the patient, and controls the metal arms two at a time, each equipped with different instruments that are swapped out throughout the surgery by a nurse.

“In the beginning it’s a little strange because as a surgeon, you’re used to being hands-on and close to the patient,” Soares said.

He said the first assistant nurse role is vital to the success of the surgery, as they provide extra traction, suction, sutures and clips.

Having the robot at the hospital will make it easier for local patients to access the highest level of care without having to go to Chicago, said Kim Waterman, media relations manager for Northwestern Medicine.

“We’ve had to send patients to Delnor (in Geneva) or Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago,” Waterman said. “Patients know that they want the robot. More than 80% of these types of surgeries are done now with this.”

Waterman said Kishwaukee just bought the machine, which was approved for use Wednesday. According to the website for Intuitive, the company that owns the machines, the cost of an Si model such as the one at Kishwaukee can be about $2 million, with thousands in annual maintenance fees.

Soares said the appeal of minimally invasive surgeries is priceless to patients.

“Although the robot might be a little bit more expensive, you’re saving a lot in the long term in terms of pain killers and transfusion,” Soares said.

After growing up in Portugal and attending medical school there, Soares met his wife, a woman from California who was working in Chicago, while on a vacation in Spain. He did a fellowship in England from 2013 to ’17, and then a residency in Chicago from 2017 to ’19 before coming to DeKalb.

He said he’s performed hundreds of surgeries with the da Vinci.

“I spent a lot of time on the simulator in London before I actually got to operate on a patient,” he said. “So I was pretty confident with my movements and at the time assisted almost 50 patients before I even got to operate. People sometimes get excited they’re on a new machine and want to do things fast, but you have to be very careful. You’re taking care of someone’s life.”