The Scoop...April 30, 2012
President Jerry Courtney called the meeting to order at 12:10 p.m. Phil Tamayo gave an invocation and led the Club Members in the Pledge of Allegiance.
David Runk then led the Club in reciting the Four-Way-Test and served as Sergeant at Arm. It was noted that Sam Bassitt had as his guest the President-Elect for the Fostoria Rotary Club. Also Linda Chartrand with St. Rita’s Medical Center was a guest and Rotarian Maria Sanko had her son as a guest.
It was noted that Mary Lane had three make-ups at Ft. Meyers, FL and next week’s program will be presented by Mark Fenton. It was noted that 74 Rotarians attended the Annual Meeting the previous week.
David Rodabaugh provided the Fellowship. It was noted that Mary Lane had a birthday and Jonalee Schmidt had celebrated her 50th Wedding Anniversary. He acknowledged that various Rotarians including Jarad Walsh, Mike and Pam Ayers and Jay Begg were nominated for Chamber Awards which will be given in the next week. He indicated that Karol Oxley had received the Liberty Bell Award as a non-lawyer helping others.
Micki Vollmer noted that the goal for the Rotary Golf Outing to be held on June 27th was $40,000.00 and flyers were on the tables for entering teams. She then had nine of the 40 Allen-Lime Youth Leadership Program participants for this program year come to the front of the room to be recognized. These were juniors and sophomores from local schools who spent time four days involved in community activities. The students thanked the Lima Rotary for supporting this program.
Rotarian Walt Kinsey with St. Rita’s Medical Center introduced the speaker for the program, Craig Nicholson, MD. Dr. Nicholson is an urologist at St. Rita’s and Director of Robotic and Minimally Invasive Surgery. He received his residency training at the University of Michigan and joined Lima Urology in October of 2010.
He noted that he had performed 240 urologic computer-assisted procedures since arriving in Lima. It was indicated that robotic surgery is performed with small incisions which allows for a faster recovery with less pain than traditional surgical methods. The procedures that he has performed have involved prostate cancer and kidney cancer.
A short video of robotic surgery was played and it was noted that the surgeon sees in 3-D when looking at the computer screen. Robotic surgery actually increases the surgeon’s dexterity and can see images at 10 time’s larger magnification. A film clip was shown of him folding a piece of paper with the robot.
He stated that prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death of American males with 218,000 new cases each year and there were 27,050 deaths in 2007 from this disease.
After discussing how prostate cancer is diagnosed with the PSA blood test and that if there is an abnormality that a biopsy is performed. He described how cancers are given a Gleason Grade from 1 to 5. He said cancers with a score of 1 to 3 are usually monitored and no treatment is needed. He then noted that there are several treatment options for cancers scoring 4 or 5. One of those treatment options is robotic surgery.
He noted that he has not had to transfuse a patient since performing robotic surgery and that his patients have an average blood loss during surgery of 50 cc or less. He said that with successful treatment patients can control their prostate cancer, maintain urinary control and sexual function.
Regarding kidney cancer or renal cell cancer, 60,000 persons will be diagnosed in 2012 with this disease which is more common in men than women by a ratio of 1.6 to 1.0. Due to more CT scans being performed the incidence of this cancer is increasing. Twenty years ago they started treating this cancer by taking out part of the kidney on which the cancer is found and now due to improvements in technology they just take out the tumor.
He closed his presentation by noting that during 2011 St. Rita’s had performed 240 robotic procedures in total and that for the first quarter of 2012 they had performed 115 procedures. If this growth in use of the robot continues it may be necessary to get a second robot later this year.
Dr. Nicholson noted that robotic surgery has been around for 10 years after being developed by the military. Initially it was used mostly in cardiac surgery but it has really been taken over by urologists but other specialties are using the robot. He also reported that he does train other urologists on how to use the robot at St. Rita’s.
At the conclusion of the program Cliff Barber was the winner of $167.00 in the drawing and the Members were dismissed at 1:05 p.m.