Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Mini-Symposium in Umea, Sweden

This Monday I went to the airport, I had to fly to Sweden to participate in a Mini-Symposium and when I was checking in they told me I would not be allowed to fly to Stockholm, there was overbooking and I should stay in Madrid... I explained my situation, and that I was traveling to Sweden to perform surgeries on patients and they rang the captain of the flight, who assured me that if there was no seat available I would fly in the cabin with them. Unfortunately there was a seat available at the end. From Stockholm I flew to Umea. I arrived late and I went to bed directly, we had quite a programme for the following day.


The next morning we went to the University Hospital in Umea (Norrlands Universitetssjukhus), where I met my old friend Bengt Friedrich, I had not seen him for some years, we worked together for the European Society of Residents in Urology.
First I gave a lecture on the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia with the new high powered Greenlight HPS laser and then I did three consecutive operations. All cases were succesful and we enjoyed an intense surgical day. At 4 pm, when we went to the ward to see the first patient we had operated in the morning, the patient was not in his room!!! They had removed the catheter and he felt so well that he went for a walk around the hospital... this was very impressive for the Swedish doctors, they had never seen such a fast postoperative recovery.
When we finished we went to have dinner with the urologists of the department and then I flew back to Stockholm so I could return in an early flight to Madrid...

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