Day Case Prostatectomy Workshop at King's College Hospital, London

Yesterday I went to the Day Surgery Unit at King's College Hospital in London, to participate in a Workshop on Day Case Prostatectomy using Greenlight PV.
Mr Gordon Muir (the smiling doctor with a yellow shirt) was the organiser of this meeting and he performed two live surgeries. Both interventions were transmited through a state of the art surgical video system. The Day Case Unit at King's is really outstanding. The goal of these units is to reduce hospital stays to a minimum, so patients are operated in the morning and sent home the same day, before 8 p.m..
The multidisciplinary approach, with specialised anaesthetists, motivated surgical and ward nurses and perfectly coordinated personnel allow to perform surgeries in the morning and sending the patient home later on the same day. It is a concept that is being pushed forward, as it reduces healthcare costs.
In the case of Benign Prostatic Hiperplasia (BPH), the advent of the KTP laser has allowed this operation to be performed in the morning and patients to go home before 8 p.m. All patients are operated under general anaesthesia, and that allows a faster recovery. We in Madrid favour spinal anaesthesia, that requires six hours of recovery, so although most of our patients go home at 9-10 pm, some of them feel they want to stay overnight and are discharged the next morning.
My contribution was to present two lectures on surgical alternatives to the treatment of BPH and it's comparison with Greenlight laser photoselective vaporization of the prostate.

So it was a very interesting session where I could appreciate how this operation is being performed in London, and the great enthusiasm among local urologists. The faculty of this meeting was impressive, with the assistance of Neil Barber and Killian Walsh, also pioneers in this technique. Killian is also an old friend. Gordon, Killian and I worked together at the European Society of Residents in Urology when we were specialising in Urology, many years ago.

Tonight I will travel from London to South Africa, where we will spend a week visiting different hospitals in Johanesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria.