The cardiothoracic surgery support group meets monthly to provide a forum for past and future patients to interact with each other and their surgeons, which helps reduce anxiety and demonstrate the program's commitment to long-term outcomes. The group receives program updates and in one meeting had a live demonstration of the da vinci robot used in surgeries to help patients better explain their procedures to others.

1. The support group for the department of cardiothoracic surgery meets monthly. There are a variety of goals for this meeting.
Most importantly, it provides a forum for past and future patients to meet with each other and with their cardiac surgeons.
This type of social interaction has proven valuable for reducing the anxiety of recovering from heart surgery. The continued
chance to interact socially also helps demonstrate our surgical program's commitment to their long term outcomes. We want
to show that we are not just interested in them 30 days after surgery. Some agendas include updates on the program at
St Francis. The attached picture demonstrates a support group gathering that was given a live demonstration of how the
da vinci robot works. Several patients that underwent a robotic procedure gave us feedback that they were often asked
about their surgery and had a hard time explaining what the robot did. They wanted to see the robot up close and understand
how it works better. So we used one of the support group sessions to bring the robot in front of our patients and provide this
information. After the demo, it was particularly interesting to see patients get a chance to "test drive" the same robot that
operated on themselves. This is a prime example of how we use the support group to grow our relationships with patients.