Covidien, a global healthcare products company, is bringing its mobile training center to Northside Hospital on June 17-18 to train surgeons, residents and staff on Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery (SILS) using their products and procedures.
Fifteen-year-old medical prodigy Tony Hansberry, who perfected his SILS technique in 2009 during a two-day session through the University of Florida, will be on hand Thursday, June 17, to demonstrate his innovation. His method simplifies the closure stitching after a hysterectomy and reduces the risk of complications that sometimes arise after a hysterectomy. Other procedures to be demonstrated during the training sessions in the mobile center will include gall bladder removal, cyst/tumor removal, Splenectomy, Lap-Band® Surgery, and numerous other gastro surgeries.
Hansberry’s friends and classmates Adam Olsen and Zoe Sieber will accompany surgeons both days in the 85-foot tractor-trailer’s mobile operating rooms to learn the innovative post-surgical stitching technique. Olsen and Sieber both have mastered the endostitch which surgeons use to repair the patient’s abdominal area after a hysterectomy, but will further refine their technique with their classmate’s single-incision method.
The innovative laparoscopic techniques to be demonstrated in the Covidien mobile training center proportionally benefit more women than men, primarily because of their utility in hysterectomies. The techniques taught during the training sessions in the mobile center’s state-of-the-art operating rooms help make these internal surgeries safer and recovery faster with less scarring.
Now, in the 10th grade, Hansberry, Sieber and Olsen’s skills are being compared to some first-year residents. These students currently attend the first magnet school for medicine in the country Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School in Jacksonville, Florida.
Northside surgeons Dr. Ceana Nezhat and Dr. John Daly, who have used SILS also will be in attendance, as well.
