The UAB Department of Surgery, along with hospital leadership, marked the monumental accomplishment of 20,000 completed robotic cases on Friday, April 28 with a public celebration in North Pavilion. 

CEO of the UAB Health System Dawn Bulgarella, Senior VP for Medicine and Dean UAB Heersink School of Medicine Dr. Anupam Agarwal, UAB Director of Robotic Surgery Dr. Jeff Nix, and Fay Fletcher Kerner Endowed Chair of the Department of Surgery Dr. Herbert Chen delivered remarks to commemorate the occasion. Attendees also had the opportunity to experience what it’s like to conduct robotic surgery by interacting with a model robotic console in a simulation mode.

“I remember us being gathered together for the celebration of our 10,000th robotic surgical procedure here at UAB, and, in a short five years, we have doubled that number and hit another remarkable milestone,” said Chen.

Robotically-assisted surgery has quickly proven to be a less-invasive treatment modality that reduces recovery time and post-procedure pain with minimal scarring. From trauma and acute care to gastrointestinal surgery, robotic surgery has been utilized across surgical divisions to treat patients and revolutionize the approach to clinical care.