I'm Minimally Invasive, I Promise

I'm Minimally Invasive, I Promise

Michelle Zarick

ENG/215

November 19, 2015

Ms. Mondy

I'm Minimally Invasive, I promise

While robotic assisted surgery could be beneficial in cases where surgeons have difficulty reaching delicate areas where intrusion by the human hand could cause more harm than good, who’s responsibility is it to educate the patient to ascertain whether the risk is worth the outcome? Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore states,  “The robot is a technical tour-de-force, but I think patients need to know that for some procedures, there’s no benefit.”  (Schmitz & Dahl, 2013. para. 25) With increased costs and overwhelming numbers of complications and deaths, no proof exists that robotic surgery holds any benefits over laparoscopic surgery.

If you want to be assured you are receiving the appropriate standard of care, it is your responsibility as the patient to vet your doctor. Most would say the doctor should be held accountable for a miscalculation or mistake in the exam or operating room. What about the malfunction of a medical device or a catastrophic reaction to an unsafe drug, who is to blame? Unless you find yourself or a loved one facing surgery, it is unlikely you’d take the time to notice or possibly even care about a medical device and its advantages or shortcomings. Intuitive Surgical, makers of the da Vinci Robot are hoping future patients turn a blind eye to the issues and deficiencies plaguing their cash cow.  (Piana, 2014)  To date, Intuitive Surgical, (ISRG) is trading at upwards of five hundred dollars a share. At the end of the third quarter ISRG earnings exceeded the projection by the Wall Street Journal, coming in at a startling $167.3 million. Analyst projections see Intuitive Surgical earning a total of $580 million in revenue by year-end.  (Beckerman, 2015)  What this doesn’t account for is the $67 million Intuitive Surgical has set aside to settle hundreds of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, including mine.

On March 9, 2009 while in the fifth week of post hysterectomy recovery, this writer was packing up the last items in preparation to ship her husband off to war the following day. While enjoying a fairly unremarkable recovery thanks to minimally invasive robotic surgery, the preceding two days brought some unfamiliar symptoms, which unexpectedly lead to an unthinkable complication. Within moments of discovering several inches of protruding intestine, the pain became unbearable and I found myself staring into the interior roof of an ambulance. Recalling the on-call emergency surgeon Dr. Zenja Watkins’ words prophetically “Mrs. Zarick, you have two options, surgical repair or certain death.” The choice was clear, although the outcome was not. Saying “good bye” to my 12 and 15-year-old children without articulating the words has etched an indelible memory I cannot shake. “Promise me one thing, that you will always look after them?” I can only speculate these words haunt my husband still today. My state of health was in a degree of catastrophe I could not have fathomed. “While operating, a massive infection with cysts and adhesions encapsulating the fallopian tube and ovary was found and the right ovary had to be removed as a result. Additionally, the infection deteriorated the vaginal cuff tissue that had been sewn during the da Vinci hysterectomy causing the cuff to tear leading to a small bowel evisceration. The infected tissue was removed and vaginal cuff re-sewn. The patient stayed in the hospital five days.”  (An excerpt from the injury report submitted by the manufacturer to the FDA, US Food and Drug Administration, 2015. para. 1)