The son of a University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital pediatrician and a Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center geriatrician, Dr. Rodrigo Gerardo felt naturally drawn to the medical field. When he told his parents of his career choice, they advised him to volunteer while he was in high school. He did so at the VA and Rainbow Babies and really enjoyed it.
“What drew me in was this feeling of fulfillment of service, helping patients,” says Gerardo, who attended Wright State University’s medical school.
While he didn’t initially think he would focus on surgery, he absolutely loved his surgical rotation.
“I really appreciate the immediate gratification of a patient has a problem, I do a surgery, the problem is gone,” he says.
He joined UH Portage Medical Center in Ravenna in September as a board-certified general surgeon and the trauma medical director. At UH Portage, he is the only general surgeon performing robotic-assisted procedures. He uses robotic techniques for surgeries such as hernia repair and gallbladder removal.
“I have better capabilities in smaller spaces with the robot,” he says. “What that translates to is sometimes shorter operative times, meaning less time under anesthesia.”
Gerardo can do more difficult hernia surgeries faster. For gallbladder removal surgeries, a complication can be injuring a bile duct, but a robotic-assisted surgery may help lower that chance of injury.
“The robotic platform has a special imaging mode, and when this dye is given to the patient, the bile ducts leading to the gallbladder light up green to highlight where they are,” Gerardo says. “I can avoid the main duct that could lead to a serious complication.”
He also does minimally invasive laparoscopic procedures to repair a hiatal hernia or paraoesophageal hernia, which can cause significant reflux symptoms.
“[It] is a type of hernia where the stomach and the circular muscle that controls the food that goes from the esophagus to the stomach is displaced. It’s too high. It’s above the diaphragm where it’s not supposed to be,” Gerardo says. “I take all of that stomach, pull it back down under the diaphragm and then close the hole in the diaphragm, the hernia, and then I can wrap the stomach around to re-create that circular muscle that may or may not be working anymore.”
One patient attests via email that “I am extremely pleased with the results of the surgery. No pain. It’s like a miracle.”
“He certainly had one of the most difficult paraoesophageal hernias that I have ever seen. His hernia was scarred up onto his lungs,” Gerardo recalls. “Now he’s telling me he can eat whatever he wants. He doesn’t feel that pain of reflux acid up in his chest. He can breathe easier.”
Gerardo is happy to help make these advanced procedures available to rural hospital patients.
“I want to be someone who’s extending the excellent care that a patient in Cleveland would get,” he says, “and bringing that to their home here in Portage County.”
Erin Gulling
Erin Gulling
