Robots are the future - even at the hospital.
Doctor Lindsee McPhail, of Mission Hospital, performed the first robotic-assisted outpatient surgery at the Asheville Surgery Center on July 8, 2022.
She has done almost 400 robotic surgeries in her career, and is the first physician in western North Carolina to do so.
She explained why robot-assisted surgeries are getting more popular.
"I think its quicker recovery. Its more precise surgery, some of the operations I am able to do are not even offered at a lot of the hospitals, with the hernia repairs we are offering some patients, and again they get to go home the same day because the incisions are a lot smaller, less risk of wound complications, certainly less pain" McPhail said.
"I didn't need a pain pill. She gave me a small bottle. I have taken none of them," Fred Gill, a robotic hernia surgery patient, said of his experience.
Mission Hospital recently added its eighth robot and will perform over 2,000 robotic procedures this year.