Transcript of Video
I’m Russell Libby with Northwoods Urology of Texas, and I’m excited to be here in The Woodlands. I’m certainly new to The Woodlands but not new to urology and medicine. I grew up in a family of doctors.
My grandfather was a general surgeon. He just passed away a couple of years ago and was over 100 years old. He was a physician and a surgeon in World War Two. And back when he practiced, I’m sure he did some urologic procedures, even though he was a general surgeon, he also operated on the hand and did stuff that I’m not sure would be done today by a general surgeon. But he influenced my entire family to go into medicine, and my dad and a lot of his brothers and sisters were physicians.
My dad was a urologist, and so, I grew up seeing how much fun he had as a urologist and treating his patients. I think it was one of the big influences in my life that told me to go into medicine. And while I was in medical school, through my rotations, figured out that urology was a great field and one that I wanted to pursue myself. Prior to starting my residency, I searched for a program that had a heavy focus on robotics, because I love the idea of being able to perform something minimally invasively and using the robot. To be honest, it’s a neat way to help people. I’m very meticulous when I operate, I go the extra mile for my patients, and I think it’s a great way to bring great results to patients.
I’ve been very fortunate here in The Woodlands to operate out of Memorial Hermann Methodist and St. Luke’s, each of which has the best, latest and greatest XI Da Vinci intuitive robots. I perform urologic procedures including kidney surgery, prostate surgery, bladder surgery, and whatever needs to be done. The robot’s a great tool, because it allows for me to have magnified vision, wrist and hand movements, and it allows for me to be a meticulous surgeon. It also allows for me to manipulate tissue in a way that is amazing. You don’t have to injure the tissue when you touch it. You can see things very clearly, place your sutures on a dime. It’s just a great way to approach pelvic surgery, and, traditionally, pelvic surgery was difficult, ’cause you always had to crank your neck and try to look in the pelvis. Now that we have the robot, everything’s magnified, I can sit in an ergonomic position and perform surgery.
My patients have had great outcomes, and it’s thanks to my patients that they’re making me look good. I’ve had a lot of great outcomes here in The Woodlands, and I just feel so fortunate. Additionally, the office staff here at Northwoods Urology and the other physicians that I work with are great sounding boards and teammates here to help the patients get better. I feel very lucky to be apart of Northwoods Urology, and we’re gonna do great things here. We’re gonna work on getting the robotics ramped up here in the area. And I look forward to helping people who come in. So, that’s me and I look forward to helping you in the future.