Trip to Asia I: Hong Kong

I love to travel, but when I travel to Asia, I do even more. I think that globalization has limited the differences among countries and cities. We all live a similar kind of life, we drive to work, we buy in the same shopping centers. Many times when I travel I do not find much difference between places. But in Asia the differences are much deeper, you really have the feeling of being somewhere exotic and far away.

In this occasion I travelled to Hong Kong to participate in a full day of talks and surgeries, invited by the North District Hospital and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. From the airport I went to the Hospital to see the patients we would operate on the following day, and check that everything was in order for the meeting. Hong Kong is a wonderful city.

The following day I woke up early to go to the hospital. It has wonderful installations and an amazingly well trained personnel. I was positively surprised by the quality of the hospital and its people.

In the photo, with Edison Chung, the distributor of AMS in Hong Kong. A true gentleman and an amazing host. He took me to the hospital and accompanied me during my trip.

The meeting room was packed with urologists and hospital personnel. I did two talks on surgical technique and tips and tricks to obtain a better outcome with greenlight and I did two operations that were retransmitted live to the audience.

We were able to comment the operations live. I first operated a small prostate, about 50 grams, and then a bigger one, approximately 100 grams.

It turned out to be a fantastic session, we had plenty of time to discuss and comment all aspects of the surgical treatment of BPH with the Greenlight laser. The attendees were really interested and stayed there paying attention until the end. Chinese people are usually smaller than me, I had to pack myself into the biggest surgical jacket in the hospital.

That night we had dinner at the Hotel Sheraton, but before the dinner I gave a short talk on the comparison of Greenlight with other laser types. The traditional chinese banquets include 11 diferent courses, so the dinner was amazing. The Hong Kong chinese food is very different to the chinese food we are used to have in Spain.

The next day I had some time to enjoy Hong Kong. I visited a fantastic zoo where I could see the panda bears and other wonders of nature. I had a great time.

And went up to the peak, to see Hong Kong from above. Impressive.

That night I was invited to dine at Dr. Richard Lo's house. He fascinated me with his amazing hospitality and kindness. We enjoyed his cooking talents in the company of other urologists. I left Hong Kong wishing to come back, as always. It is a marvelous city, a pity it is so far from us.

A new technique: Greenlight Enucleation of the Prostate

This is a new technique to treat patients with big benign prostates with optimal results. Instead of vaporizing all the hyperplastic tissue, after a brief preparation, the middle lobe and then lateral lobes are enucleated, thrown into the bladder and later morcelated or fragmented in the bladder to be extracted.

It allows to remove the BPH(Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia) tissue completely, retrieve it for histological analysis and to obtain excellent results, similar to open prostatectomy, but with mininal risk and a hospital stay of 24 hours.

I hope to present this technique at the Spanish National Congress, the European Association of Urology Congress and the American Urological Association Annual Congress.

Article in the Spanish national newspaper ABC

This article was published last saturday in ABC, one of the leading newspapers in Spain. I write about technological acceleration, how medicine is changing exponentially. Sorry, in Spanish.

New trip to Bulgaria

From Beirut I took a plane to Istanbul, and from there I flew to Sofia.

Again I was invited by Dr. Ililya Kalchev to a surgical session where we operated several patients.

This time we were interviewed by the bulgarian TV, very interested in spreading the news about this new cutting edge technology for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Then I returned to Madrid, I had a lot of clinics and surgeries to attend to.

Surgeries in Lebanon

This is my first visit to Lebanon. I flew to Beirut to participate in a symposium on greenlight with a live surgery link to the audience. This symposium had been organised by the Centre Hospitalier du Nord.

After a brief presentation, we did four operations during the morning.

Between operations I did some short presentations on Greenlight HPS technique and results..

We visited the Hospital, that offers state of the art technological instalations, and then we had a wonderful lunch in a magnificent restaurant in the mountains.

There I met a good friend, a Lebanese urologist who was a resident in London during the time I worked at the Institute of Urology, Dr. Zareh Kassardjian, we had great fun remembering past times.

Then we went back to the hospital and there I helped Dr. Khalil Armache perform two additional operations.

Dr. Armache was kind enough to invite me to have a beer in his house. I finally reached the hotel, very tired after a very intense and interesting surgical session. I slept a few hours and  departed sleepy to Istanbul, where I connected to a flight to Sofia.

World Congress of Endourology, Munich, Germany

This week I traveled to Munich to participate in the World Congress of Endourology. I had to co-chair a session on Greenlight Laser Prostatectomy with Dr. Gerasimos Alivizatos.

There were also my friends Dr. Oliver Reich, Dr. Alexander Bachmann and Dr. Andreas Skolarikos.

It was a very interesting symposium with a lively discussion. I presented some new technical variations for big prostates, as the brand new GreenLEP (Greenlight Laser Enucleation of the prostate), that was welcomed with interest. I was also interviewed for the congress magazine.

I could only stay one day,  because I had the compromise to participate in a congress in Beirut.

Surgeries in Sofía, Bulgaria

This Sunday I traveled to Sofía in Bulgaria to operate with Dr. Iliya Kalchev. He is a young urologist who has invested in the creation of a private hospital in Sofía, the Hill Clinic, and is determined to lead the technological change in urology in his country. He is the first user of the Greenlight Laser in his country. I met him when he came to visit me in April. I was very impressed with the quality of his installations.

We operated four patients together and everything took place smoothly. We had a good chance to discuss surgical tips and tricks and strategies to avoid problems and perform good operations. One of the patients was operated under general anaesthesia and we could remove his catheter two hours after the operation. This caused a great impact in the hospital's personnel and to the patient himself!

Then we did a brief tour of Sofia by car, with a lot of traffic, but I could see Sofía is a wonderful city. I could only take this photo of the cathedral. Then we had dinner in a typical bulgarian restaurant. I then took a morning flight back to madrid on tuesday.

Visitor from France: Professor Georges Fournier

Today I received the visit of Prof. Georges Fournier, from University Hospital of Brest, France, accompanied by Rivier Dominique, from AMS.

Prof. Fournier is a very prestigious urologist specially known for his dedication to laparoscopy and prostate cancer. He was interested to see the two greenlight laser operations we had programmed for today.

We had a good chance to discuss the vaporization technique as well as the new Greenlight laser enucleation of the prostate technique I am working on that will surely become a popular topic of urological conversation during this year.

Trip to Bogotá, Colombia

From Panamá I flew to Bogotá, Colombia.

I first went to Clinica Colombia, a wonderful hospital belonging to Sanitas Interational, a very powerful organisation in Colombia.


There I performed three operations with Dr. Carlos Larios and the Hospital's urology team. All cases went fine and I was told that patients fared very well and left the hospital the following morning. The hospital wants to incorporate cutting edge technology and so they are very interested in this laser.


Later that night I did two presentations to other urologists from Bogotá interested in the laser treatment of BPH at the Hotel La Fontana. As we were a relatively small group we could comment all the aspects of the minimally invasive treatment of BPH in depth.

Then I went to Hospital Simón Bolivar, where I performed two operations with Dr. Alejandro Tarazona. Both cases were very demostrative and I could tell they were really interested in adopting the technology, which is unstoppable all over the world.


A fast trip to Bogotá, I did not have time enough to visit the city. I could not follow the recommendation of my colleague in Madrid. Dr. David Rendón, to go to the restaurant Andrés Carne de Res...but I could see that Bogotá is a very nice and quiet city, and I really look forward to coming back to this wonderful country to visit it in depth.

Trip to Panamá

I spent the last week travelling. I first went to Panamá, to perform live surgeries and to deliver presentations in two hospitals.

The first was Hospital Punta Pacífica, a wonderful hospital where a surgical session had been organised, the operations were retransmited to a room where many urologists attended.

I did three operations and between surgeries I did two talks, one on the Greenlight HPS laser,

and another one comparing different types of lasers for BPH.

The session was a success, but we finished quite late, as the second and third prostates were both very big. Operating big prostates takes longer. All patients did well postoperatively.

I also visited the Complejo Metropolitano de la Caja del Seguro Social, where unfortunately we could not operate due to technical problems, but where I had a chance to deliver two talks and project a video on surgical technique.


I was also interviewed for TV, I hope it becomes available on the internet soon, so I can add it here.

During this trip I was lucky enough to visit the Panamá Channel, a wonderful construction from 1914, constantly crossed by enormous cargo ships that avoid having to go all Around south America. The ships pay 300.000 USD each time they cross it, a very important source of income for the country. They are building a wider channel, to allow for building wider ships, as nowadays the cargo ships are tailored to the width of the channel, for obvious reasons.


All the urologists I met during this part of my trip were really nice and warm, and I had a great time. It was very hot and humid, but I really enjoyed getting to know the Panamá channel!!!

Visitors from Holland

This Thursday and Friday I received the visit of Dr. Frank D'ancona and Hans Langehuisen, from the University Hospital St. Radboud, from Nijmegen, Holland. They wanted to see how I perform the Greenlight HPS prostatic vaporization in patients with big sized prostates.

We had three patients scheduled, with prostates of 40, 80 and 160 grams, and they witnessed the three operations. I showed them a new technical variation I have been working on for some months, the localisation of the prostatic capsule to guarantee that the whole adenoma is completely removed.

In the photo, with Santiago (AMS), Patrick (AMS), Frank y Hans.

Two wonderful and interesting surgical sessions, and a great honour to receive the visit of two prominent european urologists.

Surgeries in Guayaquil, Ecuador

After reaching Guayaquil, I was picked up by Gustavo Pico, the pioneer of Greenlight in Guayaquil. He kindly hosted me in his house, and he invited me for lunch, "caldo de bola" and "Ceviche de camarón", really superb. We had to leave to the hospital really fast because Dr. Pico had organised a surgical session at the Hospital Kennedy Samborondón, that was being retransmitted to the other two hospitals from the Kenedy Group.

When we got to the hospital the patient was already anesthetised and the session started. I did two operations and we mantained a very interesting conversation with the attendees in the other two hospitals. I was really impressed with the organisation Dr. Pico put in the workshop.


Then we went to the Hospital Kennedy Alborada and we did some interviews with the press and local TV stations. The workshop was widely announced on TV news and we saw ourselves on TV the following day...



Then I gave a talk to a crowded room, and I finished the day really tired but happy.

The following day continued with the transmission of four operations that were very demostrtive, and I had the opportunity to discuss in depth all the technical details with Dr. Gustavo Pico.


Finally, Dr. Pico and myself celebrated with some champagne the success of the session and our new friendship, and he drove me to the airport, where I took a flight back to Madrid. It has been an intense week, full of interesting moments, new friends and a lot of surgery!

Surgeries in Quito, Ecuador.

I took a morning flight to Quito. In a couple of hours I was there, I got to the hotel and had some time to rest. Then I had a chance to chat with Dr. Cornejo and discuss his experience with the Greenlight before starting my conference at the Marriot Hotel in Quito, I was impressed with the attendance. I had a chance to meet many local urologists.

Then we went to the Hospital Metropolitano, with Dr. Alexis Costa and Dr. Cornejo, and we did two operations. They already had a lot of experience, with more than 100 operations, so I decided to show them advanced techniques, as how to localize the prostate capsule and enuclation plane. Everything was uneventful, but I had to rush to the airport again, as I had to fly to Guayaquil. That same evening we had to perform some operations.

This was a wonderful surgical session, in the company of new friends.