In the 40 years Virgil Marante has worked in operating rooms as a perioperative assistant he’s witnessed significant changes in the way surgeons operate. Innovations have enhanced patient care, and Virgil’s proud of the role he’s played to help improve the patient journey — but never did it cross his mind that one day he’d be the patient lying on the operating table.

“I was moving OR tables around and everything went red,” recalls Virgil, who still works at VGH on a casual basis. “The paramedics gave me oxygen, I did some tests and I was told I had a blockage and would need a bypass operation. Dr. Cook told me I qualified for surgery with Jack the robot.”

Affectionately known as Jack after major donor Jack Poole, the da Vinci robot Virgil refers to put VGH on the map in 2007. The first in Western Canada to obtain a surgery assist robot, VGH recently marked another milestone. One thousand patients — and counting — have now benefited from robot-assisted surgery. Virgil is grateful to count himself among them.

Patients recover faster

Dr. Larry Goldenberg, a world-leading pioneer in the treatment of prostate cancer, collaborated with our VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation to purchase “Jack” in 2007.

VGH currently uses Jack for urologic, thoracic and cardiac procedures. Patients like Virgil appreciate robot-assisted surgery because it means less blood loss, fewer complications, less pain and a faster recovery time.

“Using the robot allows me to provide a less invasive form of cardiac surgery,” explains Dr. Richard Cook, who performed Virgil’s bypass. “Rather than dividing the breast bone, I can create a small incision, about the length of an index finger, to spread open the chest. This means it’s much less traumatic to the body and allows for less blood transfusion as well. The patient heals faster and can head home more quickly.”

Providing improved ergonomics and visualization, Jack enables surgeons to access difficult-to-reach organs, and opens opportunities to operate on patients considered previously inoperable.

“I can see a magnified, 3D view of the organs through the robot’s viewfinder,” says Dr. Larry Goldenberg, a urologic surgeon, “and the instruments operating on my patients, following my instructions, are more dexterous than the human hand.”

Teaching Jack how to sew

Since Dr. Goldenberg worked with our VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation to purchase Jack in 2007, his enthusiasm for the robot has only grown. “The technology in robotic surgery will continue to improve,” he says. “It will allow general surgeons to do low colon recessions, infertility surgery, more delicate kidney surgery and back-of-throat procedures with ease.”

Dr. Cook is putting that vision into reality for cardiac surgery, which presents a unique challenge to Jack. “The heart creates a lot of motion during surgery, it rotates and squeezes and shifts, making it hard for the robot to sew with precision,” he explains.

So Dr. Cook and a research team at UBC are exploring ways to make Jack move exactly the same way as patient arteries, in order to make surgery more efficient and precise.

Jack just one component to excellent care at VGH

As for Virgil, he’s enjoying life and back at work — his “second home” — at VGH. Thankful to qualify for robotic surgery, he knows that it was just part of the excellent care he received that helped him discharge feeling fully recovered.

“I was in the best place on earth because the people who were operating on me were my friends,” he says smiling. “While I was recovering, my hospital room was full of staff and flowers. VGH was awfully nice during my surgery and I felt so special to be in their care.”