THE KIRBY FILE | BILL KIRBY JR.
BY BILL KIRBY JR. | Senior columnist for CityView
Say hello to Yomi.
You will find Yomi at Sandhills Oral Surgery, Periodontics & Dental Implant Specialists working alongside oral surgeons such as Dr. Gary Jones and Dr. Joshua Berridge.
“What young boy doesn’t want a robot when he grows up?” Jones was speaking Thursday night at the Gerald W. Beatty Education Center, where Jones and Berridge introduced Yomi to the Fayetteville dental community. “Well, we have one.”
Yomi is, indeed, a robot.
She’s been on the job at the Boone Trail Extension office since October, and Jones and Berridge say Yomi has already helped the Sandhills Oral Surgery team with 80 dental implant procedures.
“There are a lot of healthcare robots out there,” says Jones.
You may have heard of robotic digital assistance with hip or knee surgeries.
“Robotic-assisted surgeries have been around for a long time,” Jones said. “I mean the market has kind of exploded and you can see almost any part of the body and any type of procedure they’re making robots for.”
Neocis, founded by Alon Mozes and Juan Salcedo, is the Miami-based company behind orthopedic robotics, according to the Neocis website.
“Juan, my co-founder, and I have been very successful in robotic surgery in the orthopedic space,” Moses says in a website video for Yomi. “We saw an opportunity to take our knowledge of robotic surgery and bridge it to a different market. Particularly with dental implants, we saw a really big unserved market and, more importantly, we knew that this technology would be a very good clinical application for these types of procedures. We did a lot of homework watching a lot of implant cases and just said, “Well, we can do a lot better. We can make something that’s truly digital and robotic, and really make it better for the dentist and the patient.”
Jones is a 58-year-old oral surgeon, and when it comes to dental implants, he’s always on the cutting edge.
“Yomi is the first and only FDA-approved robotic device for dental surgery,” Jones said, referring to the US Food and Drug Administration. “We don’t want to be left out. So dentistry needed a robot and Neocis created it.”
And, he says, oral surgery wanted him to be a part of it.
“The surgeon is separate from the patients, but the robotic arms are then manipulated by the surgeon’s hand movements,” Jones said. “These robotic arms move in ways that human hands can’t.”
However, don’t get the wrong idea.
“The surgeon controls it,” Jones said.
“Efficiency and accuracy”
The Yomi robot is a member of the Sandhills Oral Surgery implant team, and as Jones, along with Berridge, will tell you, Yomi is there for a better patient procedure and a successful patient outcome.
“Efficiency and precision are key to this,” said Berridge, a 37-year-old periodontal and dental implant surgeon. “Yomi is a dynamic guidance system.”
With software precision, he says, he can place an implant post or plate with incredible precision.
Again, Yomi is only one part of the dental implant process.
“We can stop it if we don’t like the placement of the implant, tell Yomi and fix it,” Berridge said. “It’s an ancillary part of the surgery.”
For most of us, getting into a dental chair can create some anxiety. Every oral surgeon or dentist knows and when a patient makes a sudden move from this stress, the dental surgeon must be able to adapt to the patient’s stress.
What about Yomi, you might be wondering? After all, Yomi is a robot.
No need to worry.
“The robot is synchronized during the process,” Berridge said. “If the patient moves, the robot moves with him. The monitoring arm will move with the patient. It’s all about patient outcomes. We can have a denture (implant) in place’ and a patient ‘can walk away, eat and smile’.
Benefit to the community
Dr. Hershey Bell, founding dean of Methodist University’s upcoming School of Medicine in partnership with Cape Fear Valley Health, was on hand for Thursday’s seminar.
He took every word of the seminar with a willing and receptive ear.
“I find it exciting that our community is home to the latest technology in oral surgery that will benefit those in need without having to travel far from home,” Bell told CityView. “I was also very impressed with Sandhills Oral Surgery and their commitment to education. The new Beatty Education Center is a beautiful facility that enables learning. We look forward to working with Sandhills in the future as part of the development of Methodist University Cape Fear Valley School of Medicine.”
Haley Harrison, Neocis representative, circa 2009, was on hand to help seminar attendees test Yomi.
I also tried Yomi.
You wouldn’t want me, be sure, for your oral surgeon.
“There are six systems in North Carolina,” Harrison said. “But this is a first in Fayetteville.”
Epilogue
Dr. Gary Jones is passionate about his career as a board certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon.
In 29 years, he has performed, by his count, 18,000 oral surgeries.
“Robot-assisted surgery offers many advantages to both patients and the healthcare community,” Jones said. “Some of these advantages include accuracy and precision in the placement of dental implants, minimally invasive procedures, faster recovery times and a reduced complication rate. The frequency and scope of robotic-assisted surgery will continue to increase throughout my career.”
You can contact Bill Kirby Jr. at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
