Montecelo Hospital in Pontevedra

After sleeping at the Parador de Pontevedra, I went to the Montecelo Hospital in Pontevedra, with Dr. Meirás and Dr. Lobato, to perform a demonstration of the new Greenlight HPS in action. I only did one case, because they wanted to see how to operate a huge prostate.


The case was very successful, but it was long and relatively difficult. I used a suprapubic drainage trocar to improve visibility during the operation. I then left to the airport and returned to Madrid.

Monday in Manresa

This monday I took a flight to Barcelona, and then drove from the airport to Manresa. It was a holiday in Barcelona, so there was no traffic. There we did two operations with an 80 Watt laser.

Both cases were uneventful and I drove back to the airport, as I had to take a plane to Pontevedra, where I had to do some surgery the day after.

Two important invitations

Yesterday I received an Email from Dr. Jean de la Rossette inviting me to participate in a symposium that will take place during the European Association of Urology Annual Meeting, that will take place in March 26th-29th.


Then I got another one from Dr. Jorge Gutierrez, President of the World Congress of Endourology, that will take place in Cancún, Mexico. He invites me to participate, apart from the live surgery that I will have to do there, in an instructional course on laser treatment of BPH, with Dr. Mostafa Elhilali (Canada), Richard David (USA) and Ken Nakagawa (Japan).

New training session in Barcelona

This time I went to Barcelona to visit the Centro Médico Delfos, to help Dr. Batlle with two cases we had to operate with an 80 watt Greenlight PV system. The truth is that although one gets used to the best tools quickly - I am referring to the 120 watt laser - and that it has been a while since I did a case with the 80 watt PV system, I enjoyed it. The 80 watt laser is also a very good laser for small and medium sized prostates. Also, we had good fun, as we had time enough to discuss the sutile technical details of the operation, the ones that make the difference...

Surgeries in Plasencia, Spain

I spent the day in Plasencia to perform two surgeries with the new Greenlight HPS. The group of urologists who bought this new unit wanted to learn the technique. It was a long day, a three hour drive to get there and then back, and we started late.

Surgeries in La Coruña

Yesterday I flew to La Coruña, to participate in a surgical session at the Hospital San Rafael. This hospital is considering the purchase of a Greenlight HPS to operate patients with BPH and wanted to evaluate it with their own eyes. This morning I did three operations, everythin ran smoothly. Then I returned to Madrid, I have a lot to do this week.

It has been very nice to operate again after the summer holidays. I enjoy coming to La Coruña, it is very pretty.

Holidays are over

My holidays are over. What a pleasure to rest, sleep, relax, read, oxygenate my brain and evaluate my life from a different perspective... My American brother in law, Wade Hatler (have a look at his website, it is really worth it) recommended a very interesting book, Ray Kurzweil's, "The Singularity is Near", that has made me understand that the advances in medicine will be exponential in the next years and that technology will evolve very fast to provide better treatments. I am even more convinced than I was that we as doctors have to look forward now and try to learn new techniques and keep updated to the minute. He also recommended "The Shangri-La Diet", written by Seth Roberts, a whole new theory on why we get fat and lose weight, that has made me decide (at last) to start losing weight.

But now it is time to go back to work. I am looking forward to it. I foresee a very intense and interesting year.

When I arrived to Madrid I found I have received several invitations to perform live surgeries and conferences in several international congresses before the end of the year, India, Mexico, Belgium...

I have also found out that our paper with recommendations on the PVP technique has been selected as a key article by www.urosource.com, one of the most relevant urological websites in Europe.

This year will also be interesting because we will try to incorporate new very exciting technologies that are being evaluated by the ICUA...