A young mother from Mission Hills made local history at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. She was the first in an area covering the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys to undergo a new procedure that requires just one small incision in the belly button to remove the gallbladder.
The surgery went so well for Stephanie Ruiz-Perez, 33, that she didn’t skip a beat in keeping up with her six-year-old son, attending his kindergarten “graduation” this week.
“I feel good,” she said. “I tell people I just had my gallbladder out and they can’t believe it was just one cut. Most people I know who’ve had this had four incisions.”
Surgeon Scott Fields, M.D., on staff at Providence Holy Cross, had trained in the procedure — a single-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy — using a device that holds three flexible surgical tools for insertion through an incision less than an inch long. He targeted Ruiz-Perez as his first patient because she is young and otherwise in good health.
Dr. Fields performed the procedure just 10 days after the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., performed its first single-incision gallbladder surgery.
“This is the next-generation surgery and it’s preparing us for even less invasive methods,” said Dr. Scott, a Valley native who trained in New York. “The big advantage is cosmetic — the incision is hidden in the belly button.”
Before the advent of laparoscopic surgeries, surgeons cut a four to eight inch incision in the lower chest to remove the gallbladder. The standard laparoscopic technique used now by most surgeons requires four small incisions for the various instruments.
The single-incision method means no visible scar, a short recovery time, substantially less pain and limited costs because it can be done on an outpatient basis eliminating what used to be a three to five day hospital stay.
This advancement is particularly significant because each year more than 500,000 people in the United States have their gallbladders removed.
For more information, please visit www. providence.org .