Nathan Bates, MD, FACS, joined Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgical Associates, P.A., in January 2008 after completing his Cardiothoracic Surgery training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He established a new Cardiothoracic Surgery Program at Orange Park Medical Center in Orange Park, Florida, in December 2010, and built it into a three-star STS (Society of Thoracic Surgeons)-rated program, the highest rating possible, based on patient outcomes. Dr. Bates was the first in Northeast Florida to perform a da Vinci robotic lobectomy for lung cancer in 2011; the first to perform robotic mitral valve repair surgery in 2014; and the first to perform robotic atrial septal defect repair, tricuspid valve repair and coronary artery bypass surgeries robotically. He is one of the few surgeons in the country who perform both cardiac and thoracic procedures with the robot.