Dr. Marina Gorelik is only 34 years old and already the Director of the Robotic Center of Excellence at Kendall Regional Medical Center, one of the largest in the state.
"I've always been very good with my hands," she said. "I played violin for a very long time."
And that dexterity, along with the example of her grandfather, who was a doctor, led Dr. Gorelik to take up medicine. Dr. Gorelik was born in Ukraine and her family moved to the US in 1996.
"At that time in Ukraine it was becoming more and more corrupt and unsafe and it was very difficult to obtain a higher education," she said.
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Dr. Gorelik said that robotics is not always an easy field for a female surgeon.
"When I was a student, people would say why do you want to do that? Why don't you take a 9-5 type of job so you can have a family? And I think that we've shown time and time again that we can really do both," she said.
Robotic surgeries are becoming more common because of better technology. They're also favored among surgeons because it's usually less recovery time for patients as well. And many procedures can now be performed using robotic arms.
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"I do believe that robotic surgery is the surgery of the future and the present as we get more comfortable with the technology more and more surgeries are performed in that manner," she said.
