It took guts for the AdventHealth Palm Coast leadership to have Dr. Abubaker Ali, one of its surgeons, lead the “ask” Monday afternoon as Ali coaxed a crowd of scores to donate money to help defray the cost of the hospital’s new, $2.6 million da Vinci 5 robotic surgical system.
But then, guts are Ali’s business: he showed video after video of his minimally invasive surgeries using the da Vinci 5, suggesting to the audience–many of whom were patients–to look down if they couldn’t bear to look at the large screens (“hope you guys aren’t disgusted”), but also explaining the wonders of the machine.
How its tiny incisions and mind-blowing precision allow for such rapid recoveries that surgeries–like hysterectomies–that used to require five-day hospital stays are now done on an outpatient basis. How patients can manage their pain with mere Tylenol. How avoiding “opening up” a patient for a surgery greatly reduces the risk of hospital infections. And how it allows patients to go home sooner, and resume their normal activities much sooner.
“We’re offering justice,” Ali said. “It’s a teamwork. It’s not about me, it’s not about Denyse, it’s not about the administration. It’s teamwork,” he said, referring to Denyse Bales-Chubb, President and CEO for AdventHealth Palm Coast and Flagler/St. Johns market and enumerating a dozen surgeons before noting, to applause: “The great nursing. I can do the best surgery on earth, but 70% of recovery is great nursing.”
Da Vinci 5 should not be confused with an absolute robot. It only functions, literally, at the hands of a surgeon, positioned a few feet from the patient. The surgeon is very much–and evermore–in control. “This technology doesn’t replace the surgeon, it sharpens their skills,” Bales-Chubb said. “Think of it as putting the best tools in the best hands.”
AdventHealth’s three other surgeons proficient in handling da Vinci 5 were also on hand: Dr. Steven Brown, Dr. Tony Highshaw and Dr. Jessica Marshall, as were five other surgeons. Ali’s theme was many-fold: sure he wanted members of the audience to open their wallets and contribute to the AdventHealth Palm Coast Foundation’s effort (the foundation, led by John Subers, is the non-profit support organization that bought the da Vinci robot, the third generation robot to make it to AdventHealth Palm Coast).
But Ali was just as intent to assure the crowd that AdventHealth Palm Coast could now stand “head and shoulders” with its competitors in Jacksonville, Orlando and Daytona Beach, and in some ways could exceed their services: the local hospital provides 24-hour access to da Vinci’s capabilities. That means “equity of care,” Ali said. It means that if a patient presents with an emergency at 3 a.m. and needs a surgery that could be accomplished robotically, and therefore less invasively, that patient has that opportunity here. The opportunity is not always available in other hospitals, where da Vinci may be restricted to certain hours, because the surgeons capable of operating it only work in those hours.
Not the case in Palm Coast, Ali said. “Anytime you come, we’re able to provide you the best technology out here,” he said. He wants residents to start thinking of their hospital as having the same capabilities and talent as Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. To that end, the hospital sends its personnel to study practices at Mayo and in Orlando, just as it has itself become an observation hospital for others in the state and the country to visit and learn from.
“So that’s what I promise you, that we’re going to be the best of the best, shoulder to shoulder with Mayo Clinic, shoulder to shoulder with UF Jacksonville, Cleveland Clinic, you name it,” he said. “We’re going to go out there, learn the best. I watch all of my video surgeries. That’s how I learned myself to get better. Some of the surgeries I’ve done 10 years ago, like–what is this garbage. I’m better now. What am I saying? Please donate. Help us change the culture.”
Fellowship trained, advanced gastrointestinal surgeon with a special interest in cancer of gastrointestinal tract, liver, and pancreas, Dr. Abubaker Ali leads the hospital’s robotic surgery program.
According to an AdventHealth release, the da Vinci 5 supports a wide range of surgeries, including cancer, urology, gynecology, and general surgery. The da Vinci 5 robot joins the two da Vinci robotic machines in AdventHealth’s current fleet in Flagler County, including the da Vinci Xi that was added in 2014. “David Ottati had the foresight–why can’t we have the robot here?” Brown said of the former CEO of AdventHealth Palm Coast, now president/CEO of AdventHealth’s West Florida Division.
For both AdventHealth hospitals in Palm Coast, in the last year and a half, the teams have completed nearly 950 cases using robotic surgery.
Comparatively, the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville has seven robots, UF Jacksonville has three. In 2025, the AdventHealth East Florida Division established a comprehensive robotic committee to further enhance and streamline the robotics program across the seven hospitals and five ambulatory surgery centers in Flagler, Lake and Volusia counties.
