Robo-doc

She looks far from a female Arnold Schwarzenegger, but probably has all the amazing skills of a RoboCop’s counterpart in the Operating Room.

Dr. Rebecca Singson doesn’t just deliver babies. She delivers results — on the operating table, in the delivery room, on the driving range. Even in parties, she delivers — with one or two song numbers. You see, while pursuing her pre-med course at the University of the Philippines, she cross-enrolled at the College of Music. (Later on, she would get her own clinic at the Makati Medical Center for a song — literally. Dr. Rebecco Panlilio, a music lover, heard her sing at one gathering of doctors and told her she could use his MMC clinic since he was then not very active with his practice.)

Today, 22 years after graduating from medical school, Becky is one of two internationally accredited robotics surgeons in the Philippines.

Beautiful Becky pays as much attention to her looks (“Never, ever, give up your happy hormones,” she counsels) as to her skills. 

“I will never stop searching for better ways to do things,” says Becky, who is the chairperson of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and head of the Gyne-Robotic Surgery Section of St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig. “This is the way I always operate. If there’s a better way to do it, I will find it. It would be such a pity not to be able to offer to Filipinos a treatment that they can access abroad. Why would they have to go abroad for Robotics Surgery, when they can have it here?”

Becky’s robot is nicknamed “Da Vinci,” from the Da Vinci Surgical System. Only St. Luke’s has the four-armed Da Vinci SI robot in the country.

Over Moroccan coffee, she shares the advantages of Robotics Surgery over traditional approaches. “Small incisions and therefore minimal to invisible scarring and significantly less pain because the wounds are so small a Band-Aid can cover them. There is minimal blood loss and need for transfusion and fewer complications, such as post-operative adhesions because there is less manipulation and injury to tissues.”

The best part, to most patients, is the shorter hospital stay, which is reduced to 24 to 48 hours after surgery, from four to five days’ confinement.

“Patients have quicker recovery and may return to normal activities and even return to work within a week, whereas in the past, there was four to eight weeks’ downtime.”

Becky says that the quicker recovery after Robotics Surgery has taken the fear out of surgery for many patients. In the past, some patients would rather have a growth (even those twice as big as a baby’s head) fester in their abdomen than undergo surgery because they feared its complications.

“Empowering women is my advocacy,” says this happily married mother of two young adults. “I want to get the message out there. Women need to know the options available to them. They don’t need to live in frustration or live with fear of surgery. They realize that with Robotics, surgery isn’t so daunting after all.”

Becky makes sure she works with a select group of anesthesiologists “who are very well versed on procedure and on the quirks that can happen. They have to be on my phone so we can always confer.”

Becky recommends Robotics Surgery for ovarian cysts and difficult endometriosis surgery, which can be performed with greater precision.

“Microsurgery for tubal surgery and complex hysterectomies can be better accomplished since fine movements and fine suturing can be accomplished. Robotics Surgery has a place particularly in cancer surgery where, conventionally, the surgeon is required to stand from four to even for as long as nine hours for one surgery.”

The morbidity rate for Robotics is only 0.2 percent, so to a layman, that means a success rate of 99.8 percent.

Robotics, however, isn’t performed for childbirth because the incision is so small, no baby can fit through it.

“I like to refine things,” says Becky, who earned a degree in BS Biology from UP, magna cum laude, and was one of the Top 10 women graduates of her batch at the UP College of Medicine. She also likes to make things easy for women. For childbirth without complications, she recommends a full diet right away, for instance. She sends patients home when they can already walk to the bathroom by themselves.

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Aside from Robotics, Becky pioneered the Fertility Center at St. Luke’s (she also practices at the MMC and Asian Hospital in Alabang).

“You can’t claim to be in the forefront of science without an IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) center. Our statistics are comparable to if not better than the best IVF centers abroad. We have a 40 to 45 percent success rate.” (The St. Luke’s IVF Center treats only married couples, no surrogates.)

Becky recently treated a couple who has been trying for years to have a child. After a year of supplements, a change in diet and even acupuncture, the wife gave birth to triplets.

“Their joy just hit the roof!” Becky exclaims. She also treated a woman who gave birth at 48 to a perfectly normal baby.

Dr. Becky Singson’s plate is full, but she makes time for self-fulfillment and continuing growth. If that means more voice lessons or a morning at the spa, so be it.

“Do not postpone happiness because internal happiness overflows to the surface and to others,” is one of this doctor’s prescriptions. “Love yourself, because you owe that to yourself.”

Because if there is any part of this Robo-doc that is the opposite of a robot, it is her heart.

“I always tell my children that EQ is as important, or even more important than IQ. In the end, we are all equal. But it’s your personality that sets you apart. After all, it was my singing that got me my first clinic, remember?”

 (You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)