Over 100 Oak Park and River Forest High School students got a look into the future last week as they gained hands-on experience with a Da Vinci Robotic Surgical System.
Demonstrators of the device said the robot costs over $1 million and has gone through over 30 iterations.
The device was transported from Loyola University to OPRF for students to gain experience in a field that some of them plan to work in and see how the machine is used to perform minimally invasive surgeries.
Students gathered in groups to test and learn about the robot’s capabilities and how it is operated.
Allison Hennings, OPRF’s nursing program coordinator and facilitator of the school’s medical club, said the experience was a way to show students something that they could dedicate their futures to.
“Giving them hands-on experience shows they can do different careers they may have never thought about,” Hennings said.
Students were able to test out the robot, trying to complete such dexterous tasks as removing a Starburst candy from its wrapper and tying knots.
Oliver Harks, a senior at OPRF, said he signed up to get the experience because he plans on going into microbiology.
“The opportunity to see an actual surgical robot at school, like in the flesh, was amazing,” Harks said. “I was just curious and wanted to see what would happen.”
He aims to get accepted into Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland or Loyola University Chicago and study to become a researcher of level 4 pathogens — the world’s most dangerous biological agents.
After working with the surgical robot, Harks said he feels it’s helped him realize why he chose the career he did.
“It just reminded me how far we’ve come with all sorts of things relating to the merging of technology and science, and how those are just so deeply intertwined,” Harks said. “It’s just kind of amazing. It’s like a true innovation and it’s kind of beautiful honestly.”
OPRF’s partnership with the Health Career Collaborative, a branch of the National Association of Health Services Executives, helped make the event possible.
The school’s Medical Club began this year collaborating with the Health Career Collaborative’s Chicago chapter and Loyola University medical students to mentor students on different health topics and career pathways.
Coralai Groulx, an OPRF junior, is in the nursing program at the school who’s trying out different aspects of the profession as she figures out what interests her most. She wanted to test out what using a robot for surgery might be and she said she had a good time.
“I just think it’s super cool because obviously surgery is an option, but for me at least, just doing this, I was able to actually kind of experience what a surgery would be like and what it would be like working with these instruments,” Groulx said.
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She started planning on going into a career in health care after experiencing the encouragement and support of nurses helping her mother who was battling breast cancer.
“That was really intriguing to me, so I definitely really wanted to go into nursing because as much as a doctor is extremely helpful to patients, I want to have that patient interaction and that relationship,” Groulx said.