Have You Ever Wondered How Mercyhealth’s Robotic Surgeries Work?

What's Up, Doc? is a semi-weekly health segment on WROK sponsored by MercyHealth. Each show we highlight a different doctor/healthcare professional to come on our show and talk to us about their specialty. It has turned into one of our favorite segments. All of our doctors have exhibited a "human" side that people don't always get to see with their physicians. We encourage you to check out some of our past episodes here. We've done about 40 of these segments highlighting everything from Lyme disease to hernia repair to finding a health care plan and everything else in between. We've learned a lot and hope you can too.

Our guest on this week's What's Up, Doc? was Dr. William Cowden. Dr. Cowden is a surgeon for Mercyhealth in Rockford, but not just any ordinary surgeon. Dr. Cownden is one of the 4 area surgeons that are certified to perform robotic operations using the hospital's DaVinci system.

You might have seen the commercial.

These machines are amazing and Rockford is lucky to have facilities like this in town.

We asked Dr. Cowden how he was trained on the machine, how it works, and most importantly, how they decide when to use this technology.

Again, Dr. Cowden displayed the wonderful bedside manner that has been present in everyone we speak with from Mercyhealth. You can tell by the way our guests speak that patient comfort is at the top of everyone's priority list.

We thank Dr. Cowden for his time and look forward to our next guest on What's Up, Doc?

A new episode of What's Up, Doc? airs every other Thursday morning at 8:35 on 1440 WROK and 96.1 FM.