Photos by article by Mary Alice Murphy
Silver City has the honor of having a world-renowned surgeon treating patients at his clinic and at Gila Regional Medical Center.
Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, former football player and member of SAGES, Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, has worked to develop a program called Stealth Learning. With the help of Stacey Cox, "we have submitted a grant application for funding.And today is the coup de grace, with us introducing the program to stakeholders."
The event on Thursday, June 27, 2024, at the Grant County Veterans Memorial Business and Conference Center and hosted by Fight Like a Girl, whom Rosser gave kudos to, introduced about a dozen students and interested adults to the computerized video games teaching one how to fly a drone and land it and learn to do some of the things that surgeons do in surgery. They will learn about the STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, math—to develop career opportunities. He said the program that day would also expose them to validated video games for good.
Rosser presented the organization The Stealth Learning Company, http://stealthlearningcompany.com/bootcamp/Brochure.pdf .
He told the Beat that if the program grant request to the Freeport McMoRan Community Investment Fund comes through, he hopes to begin the program in the Silver and Cobre school districts in January 2025, with it being about half funded by him and his family.
He said it all starts with the problem that students today in America are not doing well in STEM, and "they are not going into medicine. And we're trying to attack it with a new way of learning, which we are calling Stealth Learning. It leverages neurotransmitter and neurological assets to have kids learn it faster and learn it better."
Rosser noted that the program has been academically validated and published in level 1 journals. "It is not experimental and has been proven over the past 30 years in the field of surgery and beyond."
It meets students where they are and attracts students who are already adept at video games and it simply expands their skills. The program uses the power of video games, music and television to make learning more effective and fun.
He has taught the skills to students all over the country, as well as overseas. One of his local nurse assistants told him he needed to bring it to Grant County, and he agreed.
The program evolved from his world famous "Top Gun Laparoscopic Surgery Training Program." He has been an expert with unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, for many years because of his experience with the Navy and Air Force and NASA, and he has always had an interest in aviation. He actually trained for a time at the Top Gun facility in California, on which the movie "Top Gun" was based.
He gave a shout out to Valerie Plame, Western New Mexico University President Joseph Shepard's wife, as well as Tony and Susie Trujillo, who have supported his program. The superintendents of Silver Consolidated Schools Will Hawkins and Cobre Consolidated School District Michael Koury have expressed great interest in the program. "The spirit of cooperation has broken down walls." He also thanked Teresa Villa, Cobre program manager, for helping with the Freeport grant.
When Rosser spoke to all the attendees, he said: "I get to play video games in people's tummies. Coming to Gila Regional Medical Center has extended my career in healing. I've spent 40 years in surgery. I've done TV and teaching all along with my career. Surgeons can get better with age. This is my first big step of giving back to this community."
He has written 20 books and 70 articles. "All have been scientifically validated. This DroneSTEM Minimed program has also been scientifically validated. You will be doing things that surgeons do, that drone drivers do."
Rosser said in 1990, the new way of doing surgery began. It promoted "little bitty incisions and putting tiny cameras in tummies. Cleveland Hospital was among the hospitals introducing this technique."
He already knew how to fly drones, which are radio controlled, and he liked playing video games. "I got the nickname 'Nintendo Doc.' I've been a video gamer for years. In 1990 surgeons could not do the cameras in the tummies too well. I said I wanted to teach it. I developed the Rosser Top Gun program."
He showed a short video of how to tie a knot inside someone's tummy. "It's hard to teach, but I can teach people how to do it in 12 hours of practicing. I went around the world teaching to people how to master the tying of a knot remotely. I came up with the most efficient way to remotely tie a knot in 60 seconds."
Because Rosser was once a football player, he added pieces of football play to get to the success. He did research on video games to make it fun to learn to tie the knot remotely.
He noted the laparoscopic procedures using the tiny incisions help the patients heal much more quickly and with less pain. He also uses video games to warm up before he performs surgery.
Rosser said he always had an interest in aviation and wanted to be an astronaut. "But at age 10, I was larger than the Mercury capsule," he said to chuckles.
When the program begins in the Silver and Cobre school districts, he hopes to see competition between students from the two schools.
"Because of the shortage of physicians, I wanted to give exposure to students who would not have exposure to the possibilities of being a surgeon," Rosser said. "It installs hope in their futures. I love seeing their faces when they accomplish tying a knot remotely or when they remotely land a drone successfully."
He noted that the top three qualifying students from each district will get to go to international competitions.
Rosser introduced two members of his team who came to the event to help the students. Owen Burns has been a certified "Top Gun" in the program since 2019. He is a rising junior at Washington and Lee University on a pre-med track, studying chemistry and Spanish. He comes from Baltimore, MD.
When he spoke, Burns said he, as a 9th grader, attended the Minimed school, and now he is an instructor. "My current project is to work with high school and college students to introduce the Top Gun program and inspire them to become part of the Top Gun team. To become a leader, you need quality of character."
Rosse said Owen was very modest. "He has co-authored papers with me and is co-editor of the Top Gun e-newsletter."
The other team member, Lou Adebivi, a native of Nigeria, is in his second year at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine, with a specific interest in orthopedics. He has been a Top Gun since 2023. "I am interested in surgery, and I am already practicing my surgery skills. I want to help other achieve what I've been able to do through the Top Gun program."
Rosser said these two are from the more than "60 little ones I have."
"My parents were teachers," he said. "For me, it's all about giving back. Yes, we concentrate on engineering, science and medicine, but we are building leaders who don't have to be in any of those. I can be teaching an entrepreneur."
He expressed that "I can't say enough for you ladies in Fight Like Girl, as well as Stacey Cox, Valerie Placm and Tony and Susie Trujillo. They are people who want to help. This was a dream of mine. This was part of the hope of what I want to become reality. My family is putting in half the money, and if the grant is successful, this program will run from January through August of 2025."
Rosser said the project would not get off the ground without stakeholders. "I could not have a chance to get it going without Koury and Hawkins. They want to break down the walls and bring collaboration between the two schools."
For the computers they had set up, he said he would be on the drones, Lou would be on the surgical skills and Owen on the video games.
About a dozen students from the two school districts took turns at each of the stations.
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