Stillwater Medical Center’s Cardiology Clinic welcomed Dr. Daniel Roton earlier this month, expanding its capacity to care for and treat critical care and pulmonology patients. As a Stillwater native, Roton says it’s surreal to be serving the community that helped raise him.
“There are so many faces I recognize, and it’s nice to be back here,” Roton said. “Working with the doctors at OrthoOklahoma to overcome a football injury during my senior year gave me my first exposure to the healthcare field.”
When Roton graduated from Stillwater High School in 2008, he went to the University of Oklahoma with an interest in physical therapy. As part of his coursework, he took human physiology. Despite it being one of the most difficult courses, he found a passion for the material and even served as a teaching assistant before deciding to go to medical school at the OU College of Medicine. During his residency, his time working in the intensive care unit drove him to pulmonary critical care.
“The ICU is such a unique place in that you can develop strong emotional bonds with someone so quickly. Within 30 minutes or an hour, you’re having deep conversations,” Roton says. “Patients and family members are so vulnerable. I like to be the one there to help them through the process.”
Roton knows what it’s like to watch a family member endure a chronic illness. His grandfather lived with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and he watched as his capacity to do everyday tasks – like going to the grocery store, walking to the mailbox and getting to the dining room table – diminished.
“Watching that kind of decline gives me the capacity to relate to my patients on a different level. I don’t personally know what it’s like to experience that, but I definitely have empathy for it after seeing someone I love go through that experience,” Roton said.
He is excited to bring his pulmonary specialty to this community and fill a needed gap in care. Roton said the need for lung specialists in Oklahoma is great.
According to the American Lung Association, Oklahoma ranks 40th in lack of treatment for lung cancer. That’s a statistic Roton hopes to change by building a robust lung cancer program in Stillwater. Next month, Stillwater Medical Center will begin utilizing the Ion Robotic Bronchoscopy to perform minimally invasive peripheral lung biopsies to accurately diagnose lung cancer, reduce biopsy complication rates and accelerate the patient’s journey to care.
“Unfortunately, cancer is a disease where time is everything,” Roton said. “The goal with this new technology is to shorten the time from detection to diagnosis to 14 to 21 days. Shortening that window can make a real difference when it comes to survival.”
In addition to treating critical care and lung cancer patients, Roton can provide help for patients 12 years and older struggling with asthma, COPD, pneumonia sarcoidosis, interstitial lung disease and chronic cough. If you are suffering from any of these conditions, you can talk to your primary care physician about a referral or schedule an appointment with Dr. Roton at 405-533-3010.
“To leave for a decade and then come back to such excitement about me being here is amazing,” Roton said. “Stillwater Medical Center does a great job putting the patients’ needs first and that’s been clear to me from the very beginning. Any physician will tell you; you can’t ask for more than that.”
