The Queen’s Medical Center will perform its 1,000th operation tomorrow with a da Vinci surgical robot that results in shorter recovery times and fewer complications for patients.

Queen’s two da Vinci robots — purchased in 2007 and 2008 — also help attract physicians to Hawaii who are trained in robotics, Queen’s officials said today.
“Thanks to this medical movement toward robotic surgery, Hawaii residents no longer have to go to the Mainland for many of the latest procedures,” Art Ushijima, president of The Queen’s Medical Center, said in a statement today.
Both robots have been used for prostatectomy and other urological surgeries, hysterectomy and other gynecologic surgeries, heart valve repair, thorascopic surgeries, gastrointestinal and esophageal surgeries and gastric bypass.
"With the da Vinci robot, surgeons are able to perform complex operations through dime-sized incisions," Dr. Whitney Limm, Queen’s medical director of surgery, said in a statement today. "The robot essentially allows the surgeon to operate with ‘tiny hands’ in body cavities. Patients undergoing prostate, gynecological, gastric and cardiac robotic procedures lose less blood, have shorter length of stay in the hospital, and are able to return to work sooner when compared to the traditional approach."