Photo shoot: Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center

The newly constructed Center for Surgical Innovation (CSI) at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center performed its first intra-operative procedure this past February 27. It took four years of continuous close collaboration with planning, design, construction and final calibrations to achieve a major milestone for true translational science: the realization of a hyrid surgical suite with dual MRI and CT access via a continuous overhead rail used for research on both human and animal subjects. Procedures on the latter will not be performed until a few months later. Meanwhile PAYETTE is currently completing documents to also install robotic single plane angiography equipment (Zeego) in operating room #2 which is a recent addition to the project scope.

John Peiffer, Managing Director of the CSI provided some initial feedback and interesting tidbits of information regarding usage of the suite:

• Patients are brought in the day before surgery for imaging to establish a base line and to give them a heads-up of what to expect during the procedure.
• There have been on the average 35 staff members in the suite during a procedure and 8 in the operating room.
• Teaching will be remote in conference rooms throughout the hospital to minimize infection control.
   

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center: Imaging Equipment from PAYETTE on Vimeo.

Last week during the photo shoot, it was the first time that the PAYETTE team had seen the overhead MRI and CT in action. The entire team and equipment had to “scrub in” before entering the surgical suite, which included brushing each finger on all four sides 30 times each. In addition to still images, our photographer Warren Jagger also augmented the photo shoot with a short video of the two pieces of equipment being deployed into the operating room. Today we’ve included a preview video taken by Wes Schwartz with his iPhone.