Operation Giving Back: How Dr. Ryan Day helps his hometown by performing cutting edge surgery at AdventHealth

When Dr. Ryan Day was a kid, he walked on the field at Lake Mary High School and played the marimba in the marching band. Even then, he had a dream: one day, he would come back to help the community he loved so much.

Growing up, Day saw how hard his mother worked in health care in Central Florida. During this time, he noticed that many patients who needed special or complex surgeries had to leave the area to get the care they needed. He hoped that someday he could change that.

Now, as a skilled transplant surgeon and surgical oncologist at AdventHealth, Dr. Day is doing just that. Recently, he used a special robot called the DaVinci V to help perform a surgery known as a Robotic Whipple procedure.

A Robotic Whipple is one of the most complex abdominal surgeries to treat cancers of the pancreas, bile duct or nearby areas. It involves removing parts of the pancreas, stomach, small intestine, bile duct and gallbladder, then reconnecting these systems to work together again. Using robotic technology allows surgeons to perform the operation with smaller incisions, less pain, lower risk of hernias and faster recovery, while still achieving excellent cancer treatment results.

Day sat in the robot console and drove it alongside his colleague, Dr. Thomas Chin, who assisted at the operating table with the brand-new robot installed at AdventHealth Orlando in September 2024. This big moment was the first time this surgery was done using the new DaVinci V robot in Central Florida, which is currently the most advanced tool available and allows surgeons to be very precise, even using a green dye that glows to help them find and remove tumors completely.

For Dr. Day, this isn’t just a job…

“It’s a way I can give back to my community and help people heal and return to their lives faster.”

Using the robot has many benefits for patients: it’s less invasive, which means smaller cuts, faster healing, shorter hospital stays, and improved outcomes.

Day had to do extra training to use the robot, but he was happy to do it—plus, he jokes that his old video gaming skills from his teenage years help, too!

“Offering robotic surgery means that local patients can stay close to home, near their family and friends who are their support systems,” Day says. “I’m proud to use what I learned at top hospitals like M.D. Anderson in Houston and the University of California in San Francisco to make a difference here, in my hometown.”

Surgically, this procedure marks a technical milestone because it’s one of the last procedures to be approached in a minimally invasive manner due to its complexity. For Day, each time he sits at the robot console, he feels grateful to be part of something that brings life-changing care right to his neighbors.