Washington State University Vancouver has teamed up with Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center as part of an ongoing effort to give engineering students more hands-on experience outside of the classroom.
Last week, a handful of WSU Vancouver School of Engineering and Computer Science students were given the opportunity to visit and interact with the hospital’s da Vinci Surgical System – a robotic device that enables surgeons to perform delicate and complex operations through a few tiny incisions with increased vision, precision, dexterity and control.
“This [da Vinci] is a very unique, very expensive system. Having something like this just a mile down the road from our campus is just an amazing opportunity,” said Hakan Gurocak, WSU Vancouver’s School of Engineering and Computer Science director.
In terms of education, Gurocak said his class is studying the systems that go into building a robot like the da Vinci.
In addition to some one-on-one time at the helm of the device, students had their questions answered by da Vinci engineer Chris Stallings and urologist Douglas Masson, a local doctor who has performed a number of operations using the robot.
“Seeing the final product makes everything real for them,” Gurocak explained. “You can watch videos of this on YouTube, but it’s nothing like feeling it in your hands and being able to manipulate the controls. There’s no way of equaling that opportunity so this [experience] is very valuable.”
“Just seeing the wide-eyed look on the students’ faces after using the machine, you can tell it [the visit] was well worth it,” added Brian Willoughby, Legacy Salmon Creek’s community relations and public relations specialist.
Officials from WSU Vancouver and Legacy Salmon Creek expressed interest in bringing future groups of students to the hospital to learn about and experience the cutting-edge technology there.
“I’m sure my undergrad students will be very impressed seeing this,” said Gurocak. “Next semester I will be teaching a robotics course that would fit perfectly with this device.”
