Advances in surgical procedures involving the chest (thorax) mean that many surgeries no longer require opening the chest, but can be done with small incisions, typically less than the size of a dime, which provide great benefits for patients. Surgeons at the UF Health Cardiovascular Center – Jacksonville are leaders in minimally invasive procedures, often pioneering techniques that have become standards of care in other hospitals. Minimally invasive surgery, often called video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, has been performed at UF Health Jacksonville since 1990, and our surgeons introduced robotic-assisted thoracic surgery to the region. Today, UF Health Jacksonville employs the da Vinci Xi Surgical System, the most advanced and precise robotic surgical platform available. We are we're the first hospital in the region to have two da Vinci Xi systems. University of Florida physicians at UF Health Jacksonville offer more options for minimally invasive and robotically assisted surgeries than anywhere else in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. In fact, some minimally invasive and robotic surgery techniques performed at UF Health Jacksonville are not offered anywhere else in the region.