Dr. Ashwini Kumar, a surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, places a TriPort on 37-year-old Frances Cooper at the start of an appendectomy on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021. Kumar performed the appendectomy using single-site laparoscopic surgery. Single-site laparoscopy involves only one incision on a patient’s abdomen and facilitates faster recovery. With him is surgical assistant Moses Moreno.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar, right, a surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, with help from Dr. Edgardo Benavides, makes a single incision to remove the gallbladder of 18-year-old Enevia Acosta on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021. Single-site laparoscopy involves only one incision on a patient’s abdomen and facilitates faster recovery.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar, a surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, performs laparoscopic single-site surgery on 18-year-old Enevia Acosta to remove her gallbladder on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021. Single-site laparoscopy involves only one incision on a patient’s abdomen and facilitates faster recovery.
Gallstones are removed from a gallbladder after surgery at Texas Vista Medical Center on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021. Dr. Ashwini Kumar performed single-site laparoscopic surgery on 18-year-old Enevia Acosta. Single-site laparoscopy involves only one incision on a patient’s abdomen and facilitates faster recovery.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar, a surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, performs laparoscopic single-site surgery on 37-year-old Frances Cooper to remove her appendix on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021. Single-site laparoscopy involves only one incision on a patient’s abdomen and facilitates faster recovery.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar, a surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, removes the appendix from 37-year-old Frances Cooper using laparoscopic single-site surgery on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021. Single-site laparoscopy is only available at a few facilities in the U.S., including the South Side hospital.
It’s a few days before Christmas, and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” plays softly from a speaker in the operating room where Dr. Ashwini Kumar intently watches a TV screen. His hands guide a camera and a long instrument designed to snip away a swollen organ from inside a patient through a single incision.
The patient, Frances Cooper, arrived at the ER early that morning in incredible pain. She hadn’t been able to eat for two days. Her appendix, a thin tube that joins to the large intestine, needed to be removed right away.
Less than 20 minutes later, the emergency surgery is over. There’s no visible scar, and within a couple of hours, Cooper would be recovering at home in time for the holidays.
Texas Vista Medical Center, formerly Southwest General Hospital, is now one of few facilities across the U.S. to offer single-site surgery. While most laparoscopic gastrointestinal surgery involves at least three cuts to the abdomen, Kumar uses a technique and instrument that require only one point of entry — a 1- to 2-centimeter incision near the bellybutton.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar, second from right, a surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, performs laparoscopic single-site surgery on a patient to remove a gallbladder on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021.
This new service is among several upgrades, which include the hiring of 10 new medical providers and more than $10 million in capital investments, underway at the South Side hospital.
There’s new lighting in the parking lot, a total remodel of the main hospital lobby, and medical equipment upgrades in the catheter lab and operating rooms. Texas Vista recently received state certifications for advanced maternal care and neonatal intensive care, and it opened a 24-hour obstetric emergency department with OB-GYNs and access to maternal fetal medicine specialists for complicated or high-risk pregnancies.
New staff additions include two general surgeons, an interventional cardiologist, two family medicine providers, an OB-GYN, an orthopedic surgeon, two sports medicine providers and a doctor specializing in podiatry and wound care.
On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio South Side hospital gets major updates and new name
Kumar, a board-certified general surgeon, was recruited in June, having previously worked for Methodist Healthcare.
“I think Texas Vista is a hidden gem,” Kumar said. “It’s been ignored for a long time, and the community suffered because they had to go to the (South Texas) Medical Center for services.”
Kumar said he chose to work on the South Side because he wants to serve communities most in need.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar, a new surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, performs laparoscopic single-site surgery on 37-year-old Frances Cooper to remove her appendix on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021.
The 327-bed acute care facility at 7400 Barlite Blvd. has been providing critical health care services to this historically underserved area for more than four decades and also serves nearby rural communities.
Through the hospital, Kumar has opened a medical clinic in Pleasanton, a small town about 30 minutes south of San Antonio. He’ll also soon teach new doctors in the operating room as part of the hospital’s residency program.
“We want to show people that we’re doing cool stuff down here,” he said.
Texas Vista is training 43 internal medicine and psychiatric physicians from the University of the Incarnate Word’s School of Osteopathic Medicine, which is at Brooks.
The hospital is owned by Steward Health Care, the largest physician-owned hospital network in the U.S. The Dallas-based system operates 44 hospitals in nine states and a handful internationally in Malta and Colombia.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar, center right, a surgeon at Texas Vista Medical Center, with help from Dr. Edgardo Benavides, makes a single incision to remove the gallbladder of 18-year-old Enevia Acosta on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021.
Steward hired Jonathan Turton in January 2020 to run its only San Antonio facility. He previously was CEO of Baptist Medical Center and CEO at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Since then, Turton has helped lead the hospital through the COVID-19 pandemic and shed its troubled reputation.
“The changes here are very noticeable,” said Rebecca Martinez, the hospital’s director of marketing and communications. “The culture has really changed. You can definitely feel it.”
District 4 City Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia said the hospital has lived up to its commitment of being an active member of the community it serves.
“Working alongside our South Side residents and community partners, the TVMC team is determined to change the health disparities affecting our vulnerable communities and transforming the way medical professionals see people as more than just patients,” she said in an email Thursday.
She said doctors and medical staff engage with residents through community events like a baby shower in October, as well as vaccination clinics set up at South San Antonio Independent School District and the Toyota plant farther south.
Garcia says the partnership the hospital established with Palo Alto College as part of Educate South “demonstrates the importance education plays in ensuring affordable and accessible high-quality medical care for residents.”
Each baby born there goes home with a basket filled with goodies from the community college.
On ExpressNews.com: Texas Vista Medical Center expands role as a teaching hospital on the South Side
Besides the aesthetic benefit of having fewer scars, single-site surgeries mean less pain and reduced recovery time for Texas Vista patients, which is especially helpful for those who can’t afford to take time off from work.
Enevia Acosta, an 18-year-old health care worker, had her gallbladder removed this week to alleviate the pain she’d felt for several months. Kumar said she could return to work in as soon as two days.
Laura Garcia is a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News focused on health care. Previously, the South Texas native was the features editor and nonprofits reporter at the Victoria Advocate. She is president of the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists, which gives scholarships to communications students and advocates for diversity in news.