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Dr. James Vanwinkle has been heading up Manchester’s Unity Hospital’s Operating Room since 2011, and the longtime surgeon says the hospital can perform several different procedures to take care of patients within their own community.

“The basic things that I do are endoscopy, which is colonoscopy and EGD, I do gallbladders, I do appendix, I do hernias, I do very minimal vascular stuff and then I do breast cancer, mastectomy,” Vanwinkle said.

Selective cosmetic surgery can also be done at Unity Hospital, including liposuction, tummy tucks and breast augmentation.

Vanwinkle said while he is able to send patients to larger hospitals if he feels it is in their best interest or the need arises, it is not always necessary to travel to a city like Murfreesboro, Nashville or Chattanooga for a medical procedure.

“For a lot of the things you don’t need to go somewhere like that and as a matter of fact you are better off at a smaller place because people know you more and stuff like that,” he said.

Director of Surgical Services Julie Henson said there are about 20 people employed in the Unity Hospital Operating Room with a significant amount of combined experience between them.

“One interesting thing about this department that I feel is very special is with everybody combined that works back here we have over 270 years of experience,” she said. “That is surgical skill that for a small rural hospital is very special, especially for our community.

Vanwinkle said the Operating Room is open Monday through Friday, and scheduling a surgery or procedure begins with a visit to his office.

“We are extremely busy, which is a good thing,” he said. “As a general rule you need to see me as the surgeon and then we get you on the schedule and will work with your insurance company to get everything preapproved and all those things.”

“A visit to my office would be the first step and then if you do need surgery then we would schedule it and you would come over here for pre-op and all that,” Vanwinkle added.

While patients are typically referred to Vanwinkle by their primary care doctor, a referral is not always necessary to schedule a surgery or procedure.

“You don’t have to have a referral,” Vanwinkle said. “If you know you have a hernia you can just come and see me.”

While some insurance plans do require a doctor’s referral, there are several that allow a self-referral, he said.

Henson said the Unity Hospital Operating Room is equipped with some of the newest sterilization equipment as well as laparoscopic equipment that is currently on the market.

One of the newer procedures Vanwinkle has the capability to do at Unity Hospital in Manchester is known as Transoral incisionless fundoplication, or the Tif procedure.

“If you do not have a hiatal hernia, you can just use an endoscope and you can do a wrap without having to do surgery and you can stop your reflux that way,” Vanwinkle said. “If you do have a hiatal hernia you still have to repair the hiatal hernia and then do the Tif.”

“It is a newer procedure that has less side effects,” he added.

Vanwinkle said one of the most common procedures he performs is a colonoscopy.

“It is very routine, it is very much needed,” he said. “A colonoscopy is needed for people before they have problems.”

Vanwinkle said the idea with a colonoscopy is to find polyps before they can become a problem and eliminate them.

“If I find a polyp and it is small enough I take it out while we are there so it is one stop get it over with, get it done,” he said.

Henson said patient satisfaction for the Unity Hospital Operating Room is very high, and she wishes more people understood that patients still receive high quality care at a local hospital.

“I think a lot of times for a rural hospital we kind of get shunned because we are small, but we do great work here,” she said. “We have top notch equipment, we have very skilled doctors and staff and we do perform quite a few things that maybe the community doesn’t know.”