Netflix documentary 'The Bleeding Edge' features story of Arkansan's complications after surgery

A Netflix documentary investigating the effects of innovation in the medical device industry features the story of an Arkansan who says she needed two life-saving surgeries after an operation.

Julie Dailey, 47, appeared on The Bleeding Edge, released on Netflix last month, to talk about complications she experienced after a hysterectomy involving a medical device called the da Vinci robot.

The $1 million robot, developed by Intuitive Surgical, is marketed as minimally invasive surgery that allows surgeons to operate remotely — about 7 feet away from the patient. A 3D screen shows the inside of the abdomen, and the surgery is performed with remote-controlled hand tools.

"I was given no other option, and that should have raised a red flag," Dailey said in an interview this week with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "I jumped up and down because it was going to be such a great surgery. I wish I would have waited or gotten a second opinion."

After the January 2015 surgery at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro, Dailey said she spent one night in the hospital, felt very little pain and was walking around within days. But about a week later, she rushed to the hospital with an infection in the area that was stitched by the robot during her hysterectomy.

Two months later, she was back at the hospital for another emergency surgery. While she and her husband were camping in Colorado, Dailey said 3 feet of her large intestine fell out while she was using the restroom.

"My husband didn’t believe me," she said. "I just grabbed a towel. I kept thinking, 'This is the end again.' I said, 'Call 911 and get on your knees and pray.'"

When she reached the small hospital about an hour away, Dailey said the doctor told her she had never seen a similar injury.

"The woman said she didn’t know what to do and said, 'I’m going to have to go look at my textbook,'" the 47-year-old said.

Nearly three years after the initial hysterectomy, Dailey said she is still not better. She and her husband live in Marked Tree, about 40 minutes south of Jonesboro, but are considering moving to Mexico because of the health care benefits.

"I hurt every day," she said. "I can’t get stuff out of the cabinet because if I reach, it hurts too bad. If I walk a mile, I’m going to pay for it. I’ve lost my career, lost my income, lost my health.

"Nobody here knows how to help me. I’m not doing exploratory surgery. I’d die."

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