Provider

Patients never see their faces. But they play a key role in helping people who need surgery get care at JPS Health Network.

Called patient care coordinators, their job is what the title implies: They’re responsible for choreographing the complicated ballet of making about 1,000 surgeries a month fit into the 13 operating rooms at JPS. 

There is a big difference between trying to save the lives of Navy sailors and Marines wounded in battle and trying to solve the health issues of patients at a civilian hospital in Texas.

But Dr. Carlos Rodriguez, who retired from the Navy in 2018 after 24 years of service to become Director of Emergency General Surgery at JPS Health Network, said he has found both career paths can be equally rewarding.

When American service men and women need the help of an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in the coming years, there’s a good chance JPS Health Network will play a role in helping to make them better.

Just 10 years after he performed his first robotic surgery at JPS Health Network, Dr. Fernando Garcia has completed his 1,000th operation using the da Vinci Surgical System.

“When the da Vinci robots started to appear, a lot of surgeons and hospitals dismissed the idea,” Garcia said. “But we’ve found that they add an element of precision, allowing surgeons to get into places they couldn’t using more traditional methods. They open up a new world of possibilities.”