Dr. Abhisek Parmar discusses hernia care with passersby at a community education event in honor of National Hernia Awareness Month on June 4 in the second-floor atrium at North Pavilion. (Photo by Ashton Cook)
Hernia treatment has advanced over the past few years, becoming more sophisticated and efficient as new techniques and technology continue to develop within the specialty.
On Tuesday, June 4, the UAB Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery put this technology on full display at North Pavilion in order to encourage the public to learn more about hernias and hernia treatment in a fun and interesting way.
In honor of National Hernia Awareness Month, a team of UAB gastrointestinal surgeons, including assistant professor and event organizer Abhisek Parmar, M.D., created an interactive demonstration of the robotic surgical system they use to perform hernia surgery, the da Vinci Xi®.
Event attendees and passersby were invited to ask questions about hernia diagnosis and treatment and to participate in a virtual surgery competition by testing out the robotic simulator themselves. Those who performed well in the competition were ranked on a leaderboard, and the participant with the highest score on the simulator received an assortment of UAB Department of Surgery merchandise.
The competition ended in a tie between Corwyn Potts, a medical assistant in the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery, and Dario Marotta, a medical student from the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Learn more about hernias from UAB Medicine.
Interested in learning about #hernia surgery or treatment? Join us in celebrating #HerniaAwarenessMonth at the North Pavilion Atrium until 4 p.m. today! pic.twitter.com/BtepRsfKPu
— UAB Surgery (@UABSurgery) June 4, 2019