SIKESTON -- When Leonardo da Vinci invented and built his robot in 1495, the thought of it doing surgeries probably never occurred to him.
But it is estimated Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System did 200,000 surgeries last year.
"If you give this tool to a laparoscopic surgeon, it enables him or her to do the most amazing things," said Dr. Ly Phan, a general surgeon at Missouri Delta Medical Center. "Most of us only dreamed of doing these things 10 years ago."
And providing MDMC's surgeons with a da Vinci Surgical System is exactly what the Missouri Delta Medical Center Foundation is now working on, according to Blair Moran, executive director of the Foundation.
"We've already started the campaign," Moran said. "To date we have raised $38,000 but we have quite a hill to climb: the system is $1 million."
Moran said the effort began with the annual membership mailer in January.
"We hope to have a mixer at some point and bring one of the systems in to the community for the community to see what it looks like. It is much different than traditional surgery," he said.
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