Robotic heart surgery requires teamwork, cooperation, collaboration, and competency.  Our dedicated team does every case together and follows strict protocols. Our team communicates and functions like other high-performance teams with an emphasis on excellence, mutual respect & understanding, responsibility, accountability, and a complete focus on our mission:  to deliver a safe and effective operation to the patient.  Team members volunteer to join the robotic heart surgery team and are selected based on technical capabilities, communication skills, interpersonal skills, and an ability to work in a complex & challenging interdisciplinary environment.  Because robotic heart surgery is more complex and demanding on the team than regular open heart surgery, team performance is as important as surgeon performance.  The era of the “rock star surgeon” is over and the era of the “rock star team” has arrived!

The building of the robotic cardiac surgery team at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center and Georgia Heart Institute took a great deal of effort on everyone’s part. Most importantly, all team members had to come together to work off of the same sheet of music and support each other, no different than a team of Navy Seals or other high-performance teams. When such a level of team performance is reached, you can literally feel it in the room and you know it is benefiting the patient!