By Michael Smith
Doctor Alexander Rosemurgy of the Florida Hospital Tampa Digestive Health Institute is using cutting-edge and innovative surgical techniques that are minimally invasive to cure digestive disorders and diseases.
Rosemurgy, who practices along with Doctors Sharona Ross and Iswanto Sucandy, focuses on foregut disorders, including liver, biliary pancreatic and esophageal gastric problems.
“We take care of lots of people with liver tumors, pancreatic cancer and esophageal cancer, but we also do a lot of operations for swallowing disorders like achalasia and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD),” Rosemurgy said.
Over the years the doctors have been able to progress with minimally invasive surgery so that all their laparoscopy now is done with single incisions.
“We make a small incision about eight millimeters inside the belly button so it’s hidden, and it’s the only incision people get so it’s scarless,” Rosemurgy said. “We’re so good at this now that we operate on many patients who are awake, including many patients who have gall bladder problems. They get a scarless operation and without general anesthesia, and they do very, very well.”
Rosemurgy said it’s a much better approach to surgery to get it awake rather than under general anesthesia, and they utilize robotic surgery for many things, including pancreatic, liver and esophageal resections.
“We do almost everything robotically now–hardly anything is open operation anymore,” he said.
Rosemurgy said many people live with digestive problems like reflux for a very long time and don’t realize the dangers they are facing. He said being on a proton pump inhibitors like Prevacid or Nexium can have serious consequences, including osteoporosis, renal failure, dementia, pneumonia and intestinal infections. He said the Digestive Health Institute offers patients a permanent, minimally invasive solution to reflux so that they can get off of all the pills and mitigate the chances of cancer.
Rosemurgy said Florida Hospital Tampa, which opened a new location in Brandon on Oakfield Drive last year, is the busiest pancreatic biliary center in the Southeastern United States.
“[The Brandon office] is going very well, and we’re working to improve our relationships with the physicians and patients within Brandon,” he said. “We utilize the Brandon location for patient convenience, for initial visits, evaluations and follow-up.”
To learn more about the services the Florida Hospital Tampa Digestive Health Institute provides or to schedule an appointment, call 615-7366.
