There are a lot of benefits to living in a small town or in the country.  But if you have a serious health problem, there are also some drawbacks.  Patients often end up spending a lot of time on the road going back and forth to appointments. But thanks to technology, that's not always the case anymore.

Kids and crying often go hand in hand inside the walls of a hospital. But in Ortonville, Minnesota, one boy counts down the days for his doctor visits.

"Oh, he's the best doctor," four-year-old Sean Dwyer said.

He's talking about Dr. Robby, a robot on staff at the Ortonville hospital with a specialist more than a hundred miles away in Sioux Falls operating it. The specialist and patient can see each other through screens and talk to each other.

With a nurse acting as Dr. Robby's arms, they can go through check up procedures like checking a heartbeat.

"I can hear it. You have a good sounding heart, I think," Dr. Larry Burris said.

Sean was born with a heart condition and has checkups with his specialist at least twice a year. That used to mean a lot of time on the road for a short appointment.

"Yeah, it's nice to be able to have this right here in the community. Drive just a couple blocks instead of the two-hour trip down to Sioux Falls that it normally would take us," mom Lynelle Dwyer said.

And this technology is something doctors say is an advantage too.

"We're hoping to expand into emergency care, emergency room care, trauma care," Dr. Allan Ross said.

That would give primary care physicians like Ross live support from a specialist that could help save lives. Or at least turn a sometimes dreaded trip to the hospital into an anticipated one.

The hospital has been using Dr. Robby since February.