New advanced robots are allowing surgeons to operate faster and more accurately at Medical City hospitals in Alliance and Arlington, health care system officials said.<\/p>\n
Using these high-tech tools does not mean replacing a surgeon, nurses or others, said Dr. Ashley Mekala, general surgeon for Medical City Alliance. It\u2019s about efficiency, he stressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA surgery that may take an hour and a half now just takes 45 minutes,\u201d Mekala said. \u201cPatients are in and out of the OR (operating room) faster. They\u2019re back with their families faster, and it\u2019s a safe and efficient way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The incorporation of advanced technologies for surgeries is not a new concept. The most successful robotic surgical system, da Vinci, was launched stateside in 2000, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The value of these systems has grown, alongside the emergence of artificial intelligence-assisted robots.\u00a0<\/p>\n A 2025 study<\/a> from the National Center for Biotechnology Information found that AI-assisted robotic surgeries created a 25% reduction in operative time, a 40% improvement in precision and a 15% decrease in patient recovery times.<\/p>\n Mekala has conducted the most robot-assisted surgeries at Medical City Alliance with 500 operations. The da Vinci 5 was deployed at his hospital over the summer, which he uses specifically with laparoscopic surgeries, a minimally invasive procedure to look for problems in the stomach area.<\/p>\n Mekala is capable of doing the surgery without support but compared it to using regular headlights while driving at night instead of turning on high beams.<\/p>\n Surgical staff use different robots depending on specializations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dr. Brandon Levy, an orthopaedic surgeon at Texas Bone & Joint, which is affiliated with Medical City Arlington, uses the Mako robot to assist in knee and hip replacement surgeries.<\/p>\n Levy will use it for shoulder replacements later this year. Tapping the machine for help is a no-brainer because of how precise it is with specific cuts and angles needed for these operations, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing the robot helps a lot with some of the variables we were dealing with before we had the robot,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n Nationwide, about 22% of all surgeries implement robots, according<\/a> to UCSF Health, University of California San Francisco\u2019s academic medical system.\u00a0<\/p>\n Usage continues to increase as the newest surgeons entering the field are generally trained in robotic assistance for operations, Mekala said.<\/p>\n The da Vinci and the Mako are only a handful of the advanced robotic systems available at seven Medical City hospitals in the area, officials said. Additionally, the majority of the health system\u2019s hospitals use minimally invasive robotic surgical options, according to a Medical City Healthcare\u2019s press release<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to say it\u2019s the gold standard yet, but I do feel like it is going to be sooner than later,\u201d Mekala said.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the machine is only as good as the operator. And although the technology continues to advance, a medical professional\u2019s guiding hand is still a requirement, Levy said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people hear \u2018robot\u2019 and they think, \u2018Oh God, the surgeon\u2019s not even doing it. They\u2019re just plugging in something and letting the robot control it,\u2019 which is not true,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re just using it as another tool to guide us in the surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n Ismael M. Belkoura is the health reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at ismael.belkoura@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n