Recently we had the honor of hosting internationally recognized robotic thoracic surgeon and current President of the Society of Robotic Surgery (SRS), Dr. Ghulam Abbas MD MHCM FACS from Vandalia Health in West Virginia, at our Shanghai headquarters for his first series of preclinical labs with the modular Carina™ Platform.

As the Cancer Services Director of Charleston Area Medical Center and the head of Thoracic Surgery at Mon Health's Zelda Stein Weiss Cancer Center, Dr. Abbas specializes in high-risk patients with locally advanced lung and esophageal cancers.

Starting with compliments on ergonomics, Dr. Abbas quickly launched into the procedures after just minutes on the dry model. Within a few hours, he completed a lobectomy and an esophagectomy without any port-hopping or re-docking. He was able to dissect from the level of the diaphragm to the apex of the lung using the same port placement with no collision.

In the same go, Dr. Abbas also performed a hiatal hernia repair, where he was able to transition from a 3-arm configuration for the thoracic portion to a 4-arm configuration for the abdominal portion within minutes. This exemplifies one of the strengths of a truly modular design: an instrument arm is out of the way when not needed, but ready to roll when an extra tool is called for - in this room or the next!

It was an incredibly insightful learning opportunity for us to have Dr. Abbas and his depth of thoracic RAS experience testing the capabilities of Carina. Having support from globally renowned surgeons like him is one of the key driving forces of our team as we continue to make Carina accessible worldwide!