Registered nurses Sherry Boyland (left) and Sue Pennington marvel as Chestnut Hill Hospital’s new da Vinci Si surgical machine picks up a latex glove. (Photos by Erin Vertreace)

Preparing surgeons to operate one of the most sophisticated machines in the business is easy for Dr. Benjamin Gocial, Chestnut Hill Hospital’s chief of gynecology. He tells them to mimic the movements of the $2 million da Vinci Si with two pairs of chopsticks.

“First, they have to go home and eat with chopsticks using both hands,” Gocial said shortly after he had  removed uterine tumors from a patient in a complicated myomectomy procedure — the first such surgery performed in the state with the da Vinci Si.

Gocial’s joke, like all good jokes, was truthful.

The da Vinci, like any machine, is only as effective as the person operating it. But as Gocial demonstrated and explained at length, the da Vinci offers the surgeon an intuitive system with an impressive range of control and movement.

Gocial sat at the console in the corner of the operating room, slipped thumb and forefinger into the stirrups and peered into his stereoscopic headrest.

Across the room, two robotic arms eased closer to a paper clip lying on a surgical tray while a third transmitted high-definition digital images to Gocial’s screen in real time. Eight-millimeter pincers pried the clip open and twisted it back and forth. The clip switched from pincer to pincer.

The pincers then dropped the clip and stopped, waiting for Gocial’s next command. They folded a tiny orange label in half, slipped a latex glove on as if the right pincer were a human hand.

All of this, Gocial did with slight, delicate movements of his wrists and fingers.

“It’s a facilitator,” Gocial said. “The surgeon is still doing the procedure.”

But with the da Vinci, Gocial can transform himself into an advanced cyborg without permanently wedding himself to the machine. According to the da Vinci Si Web site, Gocial can magnify the 3D visual field up to 10 times and operate with dexterity beyond that of the human hand. This allows the surgeon to “replicate” open-body surgery with quicker recovery time, inconspicuous scars and fewer medical complications.

As Gocial had explained earlier, “Without the robot or laparoscopic approach, [the patient] would be laid up in bed for two or three weeks and recuperating for six weeks. And in our tough socioeconomic times, being able to have somebody go back to work after a weekend’s best rest instead of being laid off for six weeks is a huge cost savings.”

The da Vinci method is superior to laparoscopic surgery, according to Gocial, who has been performing machine-assisted surgeries since 1978.

“There is streamlined integration in the operating room,” said Bryan McKernan, a sales representative for Intuitive Surgical, which produces da Vinci. “It minimizes extra steps. It’s more seamless.”

McKernan further explained that the da Vinci promotes greater interactivity and collaboration among surgeons and assistants.

An additional console allows those who are not performing the surgery directly to circle points of interest on the surgeon’s screen. The drawings also show up on a two-dimensional display for everyone else in the operating room to see.

“Assistants can be more involved,” he said, “which helps from a teaching perspective.”

Although the da Vinci is currently being used for surgeries to improve women’s reproductive health, Chestnut Hill Hospital CEO M. Brooks Turkel anticipates broader use in the future, especially with prostate surgery.