Jonesboro, AR – JonesboroRightNow.com – Jonesboro students had a hands-on experience with medical robotics at St. Bernards’ Robotics Day on Thursday.
In addition to exposing STEM students to robotics, the event also commemorated the hospital’s 10,000th robotic procedure, which was performed in November 2025, and its two new da Vinci 5 robots. These robots are used in many different surgeries, including colon, lung, knee and hip replacements, and more.
The event, held on Tuesday in Paragould and on Thursday in Jonesboro, allowed students to use one of the da Vinci 5 systems, guiding its arms to perform various tasks. They also stopped at booths in which students could practice mock operations, scrubbing in, and more.
“It’s giving them a taste of what the future’s gonna look like. Everything’s already being supplemented by AI. Surgical robotics is in just about every surgical field, in one form or fashion, and hopefully, [this gets] them excited a little bit about healthcare and seeing the different roles that they can do,” said Dr. Jessica B. Hobby, general surgeon, service of trauma medical director, and director of physical robotics at St. Bernards.
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St. Bernards has been performing robotic surgeries for 18 years. Robotic surgeries are generally less invasive, may result in faster healing, and cause less scarring.
Using the da Vinci 5 robot, students worked to remove as many rings as possible from cones. The school that removes the most rings on average will name the robots, with Paragould students naming one and Jonesboro students naming the other.
When this event was held in 2024, Paragould High School won and named the robot “Robo Ramsey,” a reference to the school’s mascot, the Rams.
Valley View Junior High’s computer science class was one of the Jonesboro schools that attended. The class’s teacher, Chris Jennings, said the class aims to introduce students to different aspects of computer science. He added that his students had been “pretty amazed” with the robot itself.
“Robotics is a pretty important one of those,” Jennings said. “Getting some visual and hands-on experience with a medical robot, with us being such a big medical town, is, I think, really important.”
Valley View eighth grader Dawson Owens said getting to work with the robot was “cool.”
“The 3D part was cool, and how there’s a microphone, you could talk to the person who’s sitting in there,” he said.
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