"I figured if I was going to have the surgery, I’d like to have the best, and I believe I did."

Stanley Lech is lucky his wife, Nancy, gives him a little push now and then. And both Stanley and Nancy feel lucky that Cooley Dickinson has opened its Minimally Invasive and Robotic Surgery Program.

Since Stanley hadn’t had a physical in 15 years, Nancy made an appointment for him in the spring to see his primary care physician, Dr. Timothy Parsons, who found a nodule on Stanley’s prostate and referred him to the Urology Group of Western New England.

Further testing was done, and physicians within the practice recommended surgery. Stanley was told that robotic surgery could be done at Cooley Dickinson, and that set his mind and Nancy's at ease, since Cooley Dickinson has been the family's community hospital for over 30 years, and Nancy works as a nurse in its Childbirth Center.

The surgery was July 23. Stanley walked the hospital corridors the same day, and he was discharged three days later.

Seven weeks later, Stanley was back on duty at Callaway Golf in Chicopee, where his job as a pipe fitter requires him to push a 700-pound toolbox around a half-mile-long plant.

Says Stanley, "I figured if I was going to have the surgery, I'd like to have the best, and I believe I did."