Albert Loayza, RN, surgical first assistant at Bluffton Hospital, puts it this way: “Our hospital is small, but our care is big.”

Last year that “small” Bluffton Hospital surgical department handled 4,500 procedures, a number that may surprise most Icon viewers.

Bluffton’s surgical specialties include general, obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN), facial plastic, pediatric, urology, gastro-intestinal and ear, nose and throat surgery.

One of the new surgical procedures available at Bluffton is plastic surgery. In 2017 Bluffton averaged two plastic surgeries each week. These ranged from ear, nose and throat surgeries to facial plastic surgeries.

Many of those procedures involved a team including a surgeon, anesthesiologist, team first assistant, scrub nurse and a circulating nurse.

That team is part of the 14-member surgical staff at the hospital. It includes RNs, surgical technicians and one operating room assistant. The department also as a “call team” available 24 hours a day for emergency surgeries.

A da Vinci Surgical Robot, now in place in the Women’s Center of Bluffton Hospital, makes the 4,500 procedures even more meaningful.

Loayza says that the robotic “cutting-edge” technology makes Bluffton Hospital even better than most small hospitals. The surgical robot can be used in surgery involving teenagers through adults.

“The smallness but cutting-edge technology available in Bluffton makes our hospital’s rural setting very unique among small U.S. hospitals,” said Stacy Graymire, RN, and clinical manager, “because it allows more people to stay close to home for advanced surgical procedures.”