SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah teacher is preparing to return to the classroom after doctors at Intermountain Health used cutting-edge 3D modeling and robotic technology to save her kidney.

When Sarah Machol suffered a painful kidney stone attack, she never imagined what doctors would discover next: a seven-centimeter cyst on her left kidney.

“I was stuck in the bathtub all night. I was in so much pain,” she said.

At first, she was told the kidney couldn’t be saved.

That changed when she sought a second opinion from Dr. Richard Matern, the lead robotics and surgical specialties surgeon for Intermountain Health’s Canyons Region.

“He actually let me see my CT scan, which I had never seen what this looked like or how it was impacting my body internally,” Machol said.

Using new state-of-the-art

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