Patients with conditions such as Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer may not have to travel far anymore to receive the most advanced surgical options.
Dr. Mohi Mitiek of Mercy Health Anderson Hospital in Cincinnati brings the latest techniques in robotic surgery to the Cincinnati region.
Though he was born in Libya, Mitiek claims Washington D.C. as his hometown. He completed his education and medical school in Libya before moving to the U.S. in 1997 for his general surgery training at the University of Kansas.
Mitiek furthered his education by specializing in cardiothoracic surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He went on to study minimal access to thoracic and heart surgery for another year before serving on the teaching staff at the University of Minnesota.
While teaching in Minnesota, Mitiek dedicated most of his time to working with the surgical robot to improve its technique and design. He then went into private practice before ultimately ending up at Anderson.
In January 2017, Mitiek performed Anderson’s first robotic esophageal resection.
“The esophagus is the connection between the mouth and the stomach, and if you devolve a cancer there, we need to invent a tube to … recreate the food pipe,” says Mitiek.
To perform this procedure, the surgeon must resect, or remove, the damaged or cancerous part of the esophagus.
“We go to the abdomen first and we fashion the stomach as a tube, and we go to the chest and resect the esophagus. To me, the most important part is to resect, as much and as clean as possible, the lymph nodes around the esophagus,” says Mitiek. “(We then) pull the tube from the stomach side and reconnect it back to the upper part of the esophagus.”
Mitiek says a majority of these complex procedures are done open, but he performed the surgery robotically.
“It was less invasive, which means less recovery time for the patient. They’re not having everything opened up,” says Sheila Palmer, director of cardiovascular services at Anderson. “When you have it robotically, you just have a few different incisions throughout your body, versus a humongous cut.”
“The goal here is to give the patient (a) similar surgery as open, with less pain, with less bleeding.” Dr. Mohi Mitiek
“And that’s what we accomplish with the robot,” says Mitiek.
Mitiek says the patient, who had been diagnosed with Barrett’s esophagus – a complication of GERD in which the tissue lining the esophagus is replaced by tissue resembling that lining the stomach – was able to return to a normal diet just two weeks after the surgery.
“For me, it’s very exciting, and I think for our hospital and for our patients, it’s wonderful to have somebody like him on our staff because we’re able to look at doing things that we didn’t do before,” says Palmer. “We’re able to offer things to our patients in their back yard, where they used to have to drive long distances.”
New options are just one facet of the growing availability of technology. Another major benefit is an increased quality of care, Palmer says.
“We are human beings and we have to show it. We have to care. Patients come to you because they are looking for care, No. 1, and options, No. 2,” says Mitiek. “Sometimes, you cannot offer options, but you can always care.”
The Post-Op Walk
Dr. Mitiek walks with patients after surgery
Major surgery – such as a lung resection, or removal of a portion of the lung – can be a scary procedure for some patients. That’s why Mitiek uses a simple post-operative routine to boost his patients’ confidence.
“When I do (a) lung resection, for example, I usually do the surgery in the morning,” says Mitiek. “Before I finish the surgery, I inject the chest with local anesthetics (to) improve their pain tolerance after surgery. With the robot, their pain is (significantly less).”
Once the patient wakes up in the ICU, Dr. Mitiek pays him or her a visit. Then, they go for a walk.
“I make sure that I walk with them because most people, they think … the lung surgery is extensive, so they get scared and they don’t want to move,” says Mitiek. “When they walk with their physician, No. 1, they feel the safety that it’s okay to move. No. 2, it’s a good gesture from me that I really do care. And I do care. I’m very passionate about what I do and passionate about my patients. I want them to do well.”
Hailey Stangebye is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
About the Expert
Dr. Mohi Mitiek is a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon at Mercy Health Physicians. His areas of expertise include a variety of innovative cardiac, thoracic and esophageal surgeries. Dr. Mitiek received his medical degree from the University of Tripoli, Libya, before coming to the U.S. for further surgical training. He completed his residency in general surgery at Kansas and completed two fellowships: in cardiothoracic surgery at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, and in minimally invasive thoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota.
