People traveling from all over Georgia, bordering states and beyond to have robotic surgery with Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) have pushed NGHS past the 25,000^th surgery milestone – which puts the system’s robotic surgery program among the top 10 hospitals in the southeastern United States.

More than 50 surgeons use NGHS’ nine da Vinci surgical systems at two hospitals – Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) Gainesville and NGMC Braselton – to perform robotic procedures across several surgical specialties including bariatric weight loss, heart & vascular, colorectal, gynecological, gynecological oncology, orthopedic, thoracic, urological and general surgery.

“Robotic surgery provides patients with tremendous benefits through smaller incisions and less blood loss, which often leads to a shorter hospital stay, faster recovery and smaller scars,” said Parker Long, DO, medical director of Robotic Surgery at NGMC and an OB/GYN with Northeast Georgia Physicians Group. “It takes a tremendous amount of teamwork across all clinical staff, physicians and leadership to reach these amazing milestones, and we are honored to use robotics to help more patients than ever before.”

NGMC Gainesville was the first hospital in Georgia to acquire the newest da Vinci 5 surgical system earlier this year and is one of only two hospitals in the state providing robotic heart surgery. NGHS also has other advanced robotic surgical systems used for joint replacement surgeries, lung biopsies and urological procedures. Plus, The Surgical Review Corporation has accredited both NGMC Gainesville and NGMC Braselton as Robotic Surgery Centers of Excellence.

“All of this expertise has led to NGHS becoming a nationally renowned robotic surgery teaching facility,” said Dr. Long. “Surgeons and staff from hospitals across the U.S. travel here regularly to observe and learn from our program and surgeons over the course of multiple days. That’s rare for a community-based hospital outside of a major metro area, and it might surprise many people who live in this region.”

Learn more about NGHS’ surgical services at nghs.com/surgery