The Christie Charity
The Christie recognised as an accredited robotic training centre
In March 2018, staff members at The Christie were pleased to achieve accredited training centre status for robotic surgery in Urology and Gynaecology.
This means that not only does The Christie provide an incredible robotic surgery service for patients across the whole of the North West, it also helps to train other consultants from around the UK to be able to use the technology.
In recognition of the accredited training centre for robotic surgery status, The Christie received a plaque from Intuitive Surgical, the creator of the da Vinci ® surgery robot.
Robotic surgery started at The Christie in January 2008, with a limited number of urology cases. In the last 10 years, the robotic service has expanded to gynaecological and colorectal surgery, with almost 2,000 patients treated.
Over this time, the service at The Christie has gone from strength to strength, leading the way in robotic surgery. It is now more common for hospitals to have a robotic surgery service but The Christie was one of the first hospitals outside of London to pioneer the technology.
In 2015, this success and expansion led to the service getting two new robots – meaning they can now treat more patients than ever before.
Training centre
The Christie also provides a training centre for robotic surgery. Mr Vijay Ramani, lead of the Robot Users Group at The Christie, and Mr Michael Smith, Consultant Gynaecological Oncologist, are both preceptors in robotic surgery and have trained consultants nationally.
One cutting-edge piece of technology at The Christie is a robotic surgery skill simulator. This allows consultants to develop their robotic surgery skills by practising computerised scenarios.
Exceptional work
Mr Vijay Ramani said of the accreditation: “This achievement is recognition of the exceptional work by the whole team.
“From the tireless work of the nursing team, to the consultants and the managerial staff, this really shows that we are now a very experienced service, delivering outstanding patient outcomes.”