Minimally invasive technique helps patient recover faster and limits the need for a colostomy bag

Sherrie McAdow retired from her career in education one year ago and has devoted her free time to her biggest passion: teaching ballet and tap at a local dance studio. By this spring, she was looking forward to spending the summer dancing, swimming and visiting the library with her five active grandchildren. Living with a colostomy bag would not have fit into those plans.

So, when she learned that she had rectal cancer, she was devastated. Her mother had dealt with a colostomy bag while battling metastatic ovarian cancer, and she didn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Thanks to a procedure that Dr. Jean Salem just introduced to Saline Health System, she didn’t have to.

Instead, McAdow’s cancer was removed using a transanal minimally invasive surgery (TAMIS) that meant she was released from the hospital the day after surgery without needing a colostomy bag, not even temporarily.

“I did not want to give up the lifestyle that I have, and they [Salem and his team] protected that for me,” she said. “I am grateful and blessed that I ended up here at the right place with the right person at the right time.”

Salem is a board-certified general surgeon who is double fellowship trained in bariatric/foregut surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and colon and rectal surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He joined the team at Saline Surgery and Weight Loss Clinic in September 2022.

Salem had used the TAMIS procedure during his fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, but it had never been done at Saline Memorial Hospital before. The other option for treatment would have involved making an incision or incisions in the abdomen that would have meant spending at least four days (and possibly up to a week) in the hospital, and removing a segment of the rectum, which normally requires a temporary or permanent colostomy bag.

“With the TAMIS technique, the patient had no incisions in her abdomen, and she went home the next day,” Salem said. “She didn’t have any changes in her bowel habits or in her lifestyle, and she recovered very quickly.”

CEO Michael Stewart said Saline Health System will continue to strive to introduce new techniques and the most advanced technology so that patients have the same opportunities they would get in larger cities across the country.

“Living in a rural area does not limit the availability of high-quality health care here,” Stewart said. “At Saline Health System, we are pleased to be able to offer innovative techniques, like the TAMIS, so that people in our community can live happier, healthier lives.”