After what he describes as a “non-traditional” beginning, Dr. Juan Torres-Reveron is quickly becoming the robotics expert at Miami Valley Hospital.
Torres-Reveron, a neurosurgeon with Premier Health Neuroscience Institute, was born and raised in Puerto Rico.
“A lot of friends of mine who did school, many of them (went on to) work in military bases,” he says.
The friends who worked at military bases, Torres-Reveron says, all had doctorates. There was one friend in particular who worked in neurobiology. That sparked his interest.
Torres-Reveron attended the University of Minnesota, where he started his research.
“I spent a year up there working on my Ph.D., but in the process, I realized … I wanted to be a doctor. I thought (with) neuroscience, you had that ability to jump in between two things.” - Dr. Juan Torres-Reveron
After spending several years at the University of Minnesota, Torres-Reveron transferred to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
After Torres-Reveron spent another few years at Birmingham working on his M.D., his Ph.D. adviser moved to the Baylor College of Medicine and asked to join him.
Once he got to Baylor, Torres-Reveron switched up what he was doing.
“That’s where I got shaped into neurosurgery,” he says.
Originally, Torres-Reveron says he was interested in plastic surgery, but working with his adviser and seeing functional neurosurgery in person changed his mind.
He could see, “This is where research makes a difference in people’s lives,” he says.
After finishing medical school at Baylor, Torres-Reveron transferred to Yale for his fellowship.
“They had a great functional program,” he says. “At the same time, they had a great epilepsy program.”
Torres-Reveron says he became interested in epilepsy because it is a bridge between the functional programs and physiological technologies.
“We try to treat the patient, but I tell everybody that every epilepsy patient is a research subject even if they don’t want to (be), because it’s part of what we do. We have to record their brain,” he says.
Torres-Reveron says that, by definition, he is a functional epilepsy surgeon, but he has been able to transition to a spinal surgeon thanks to technological advances in the field, including stereotactic mapping.
“You need to have this ability to trust computers into telling you how you get things into places you want,” he says.
Work with ROSA Spine
Torres-Reveron was recently the first surgeon in the U. S. to perform a surgery with ROSA Spine, a machine that helps doctors place screws with precision during surgery.
But it was not his first time working with the ROSA technology.
Torres-Reveron worked with ROSA Brain while at Yale. The two devices are very similar.
“It was an easy transition. It was a simple lateral transition that applied the stereotactic principle." - Dr. Juan Torres-Reveron
ROSA Spine originated in Europe and has been around for three or four years. The device recently made its way over to the U. S., Torres-Reveron says.
“This device is cleared by the FDA to be used in the placement of screws in the lumbar spine,” he says.
The first ROSA Spine surgery occurred in April and the candidate was perfect.
The woman had spondylolisthesis, a condition in which one vertebra has moved in front of another because of weakness in the joints. The vertebrae were in the lumbar spine.
The patient had spondylolisthesis on two different vertebrae, so six screws had to be placed on two levels of her spine.
“Doing it on two levels, my thought was, we could use the device to help speed up the process a little bit,” he says. “I figured the device would be perfect for that because it would allow me to go through all those levels in one shot.”
While dealing with the spine, precision is critical.
“The device gives you a big advantage in the target options and how you place the screws,” he says. “The big advantage of the device is precision. It’s like painting by numbers.”
The patient only spent three days in the hospital after surgery, less than the week-long stay patients typically have.
“I am the guy who took a leap of faith,” he says. “You have to trust the technology and say, ‘OK, I know I have done this in the brain, in some other ways, using the technology. I think this will work in the spine using the same approach.’”
Torres-Reveron hopes ROSA Spine becomes more commonplace in hospitals to help more spine surgeries become minimally invasive.
“The device helps the surgeon make that jump quite easily,” he says. “If anything, it will help speed up the process of transitioning to minimally invasive spine surgery.”
Thanks to the Brethren Center for Surgical Advancement in Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Miami Valley Hospital will soon be able to train doctors on how to use ROSA Spine.
Brethren Center
The Brethren Center is a robotics center where surgeons and residents can be trained on new technology in the field.
“The goal is to have surgeons come to Miami Valley Hospital,” Torres-Reveron says. “We’re going to be able to show them how the technology works.”
The center offers a six-part course, which includes hands-on training and certifications.
Programs at the center include an executive session, surgeon training enhancement program, surgeon lecture program, operating room staff efficiency course, robotic surgery coordinator course, and first assistant course.
“We’re not doing this for our own use in the hospital,” Torres-Reveron says.
While Torres-Reveron is helping with the Brethren Center, he is also working on two other programs at Miami Valley.
“Besides the ROSA program, I am kind of building two other programs, which is functional neurosurgeon and epilepsy,” he says. “I may become the robotics guy of the Valley.”
Dylanne Petros is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Dr. Juan Torres-Reveron
Dr. Juan Torres-Reveron is a neurosurgeon with Premier Health Neuroscience Institute at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton. After finishing his M.D. at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, he transferred to Baylor College of Medicine to finish medical school. After finishing medical school, he did his fellowship at Yale and became a functional epilepsy surgeon. Torres-Reveron has been at Miami Valley for a year and is the first doctor in the United States to use the ROSA Spine technology for lumbar spine surgery. In the future, he plans on helping train more surgeons in ROSA technology and working to perfect minimally invasive surgeries.
