Training in San Sebastian

This friday I travelled to San Sebastian. I took a plane with my wife and daughters, accompanied by Dr. Al Tayyib, from Saudi Arabia, to participate in a training session on HPS laser prostatectomy at the Clinica del Pilar, that has decided to invest in top technology for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. I had to train two local prestigious urologists.

We had some problems just after arriving to San Sebastian. Iberia lost my luggage, and my cystoscope was inside my suitcase, and I needed it to operate that same afternoon. Thanks to the rapid reaction of the Olympus representative in the Vasc Country we could borrow a new continuous flow Olympus cystoscope. This new instrument has an 8 F channel that allows a better irrigation and it performs much better than the previous Olympus cystoscope. It provided us with a fantastic visibility during surgery, so I would recommend it to other users.

I did two cases, the first one was a huge prostate, bigger than 120 grams, that was completely uneventful. Then we did a second case that was also interesting. Dr. Al Tayyib, who was extremely satisfied to have had a chance to see the HPS in action with small, medium and large prostates during his week in Spain with us, rushed to the airport as he had to return to Saudi Arabia. I stayed in San Sebastian to spend the weekend with my wife and daughters.

Although it is one of the most beautiful cities in Spain, we were not very comfortable in San Sebastian, as the rain did not stop pouring over us and also because we could not change our clothes as much as we would have liked. If you lose your luggage with Iberia, you are in trouble. You call the lost luggage information number and they do away with you with a simple recording. I was lucky because Ana María, my PA, went to Madrid Airport on Sunday, and asked a friend working at the airport to help her review case by case until she found it. If I did not have the best PA in the world, I think I would have never recovered our lugagge and cystoscope!