Got robots? These hospitals do

Dr. Boris Kovalenko, an orthopedic surgeon, stands June 30 with a robot that assists with knee replacements at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center in Lewiston. A robot can probably help with that. Robotics-assisted technology is becoming more common in operating rooms across Maine, with St. Mary's Regional Medical Center in Lewiston recently joining the list of hospitals employing the new methods. "It kind of is a fundamentally different way of doing a knee replacement," Dr. Boris Kovalenko, an orthopedic surgeon at St. Mary's, said earlier this summer. Kovalenko was standing in an operating room at St. Mary's, holding what looked more like a tricked-out hot glue gun attached to a rolling TV cart than an advanced piece of surgical technology.