Since 2002, Shelva Welsh has called Berlin, Maryland home. A retired grocery store clerk from Pikesville, Maryland, she takes good care of herself and she stays busy and healthy by volunteering her painting and small repair skills at the community pool in her Mystic Harbor development.
So she was pretty sure something was wrong when she suddenly started feeling ill earlier this summer. “My doctor ordered some tests, showed me the results and referred me to Dr. Mark Shimko at Peninsula Urology Associates in Salisbury,” said Welsh. “It turned out to be a partially blocked kidney.”
Little did she know, then, but Welsh would become a key participant in a Peninsula Regional Medical Center (PRMC) milestone. On June 26th, Dr. Shimko removed the blockage in her kidney using PRMC’s da Vinci Surgical Robot. It was the 1,000th surgery performed with the revolutionary technology since PRMC first introduced robotic surgery on the Delmarva Peninsula in 2007.
“It’s patients like Ms. Welsh who support and trust our surgeons and our surgical teams who have made our robotics program so successful,” said Dr. Shimko, the Medical Director of PRMC’s Peninsula Institute for Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgery. “Without them and our surgeons and their teams it would never have been possible to build our Institute and develop it into a world class program.”
And for the 76-year-old Welsh, experiencing her first significant surgery, the experience and recovery was everything she expected. “I had no qualms about robotic surgery because I spoke with my GYN, learned from Dr. Shimko about benefits like less pain and a getting better faster, and everyone I talked to said they thought it was.
