Trip to Asia III: Taiwan

From Shanghai I flew to Taipei, and when I arrived I went to walk around it's famous night markets. Taipei must be the city with most motorbikes in the world, and it is a modern and nice city with heavy traffic.

The following day I visited the Tri-Service General Hospital, a military hospital serving Taiwan's army, the navy and the air force. First I gave a talk on Greenlight HPS treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Then we went to the surgical theatre, where I helped the hospital's urologists to perform a case, there were also urologists from other hospitals. It was a really interesting case.

 


That day Dr. Richard Santucci, a famous reconstructive urological surgeon, was also visiting the hospital, and we had a very nice chat over a Taiwanese banquet consisting on 11 or 12 courses.

That same night I took the speed train to Kwashioung, the second main city in Taiwan, where I had to make a presentation on greenlight laser and BPH in the 2009 Asia-Pacific Uro-oncology Summit.

The dinner after the congress was very nice and fun, with a lot of karaoke going on. I shared the table with Dr. Paibul Boonyapanichskul, from Bangkok; Dr. Hwancheol Son, from Seoul; our host, Prof. Po Hui Chiang, and Prof. Lawrence Klotz, from Canada. I had a lot of fun!

That same night I went back to Taipei to prepare my return to Madrid. I had time enough to visit the tallest building in Taipei, where I could see the city from above. It was a great farewell after a long trip.

Trip to Asia II: Shanghai

From Hong Kong I travelled to Shanghai, I arrived at night and it was incredible to see the amount of skyscrapers in this wonderful city. It reminded me very much of the movie "Blade Runner".

This is the view of Shanghai I had from my hotel room.

The following morning I was picked up by Dr. Henry Chen, the Chinese urologist with the largest experience in the treatment of BPH with the Greenlight laser. We went to Shanghai's Number 1 People's Hospital to perform a surgical operation that would be transmitted live to the venue of the 30th Congress of the Société Internationale d'Urologie.

The operation was succesful, although we had to calibrate the camera because we had relatively bad camera image, but we managed to solve it. It was a pity that the transmission only lasted 30 minutes, because we could not show the final result of the operation to the audience. We had a good discussion though during the part that was transmitted.

The following day I presented the new technique of Greenlight laser enucleation in a congress session. It was very welcome by the audience. The combination of initial vaporization to facilitate subsequent enucleation could prove to be an optimal strategy to operate bigger prostates with safety and efficacy. Many urologists have problems treating big glands and also they were afraid of morcellation. The new Piranha Morcellator from Richard Wolf has improved this process significantly, and it is much safer than it was before.

 

Then my contribution to the congress finished, and I took the opportunity to get to know Shanghai, a surprising and wonderful city.

I had never seen Malls so huge. 10 floors and thousands of shops and restaurants. Amazing city, Shanghai.

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.