My Op

Here is the footage, of my robot-assisted partial nephrectomy (RAPN).  It its original form, the video is 2hr 35mins long - which doesn't include the "opening" and "closing" phases (of me).  I have edited this down to less than 30mins, to show all the main stages of the surgery.  So far, I haven't found a video, created by a surgeon, that shows the whole end-to-end operation - they usually keep them short, to focus on the "medically interesting" bits.  I made the decision to show all the stages of the surgery for the benefit of newly diagnosed patients.

The intent is to show future candidates it's not all magic - it's engineering, medical training, and lots of practice!  I've described the stages in layman's terms.  It, hopefully, shows some of the advantages of robot-assisted surgery over traditional laparoscopic tools.  It also shows the ProART drop-in transducer in action -  a laparoscopic ultrasound probe capable of seeing inside the kidney to determine the size and location of  the tumour.  At the time of operation, this probe was the only one in the UK.  In the image below, the transducer is the lower torpedo-like structure.  Above it is one of the robot arms, grasping the probe to position it accurately within the body.

ProART drop-in ultrasound transducer

And so, raise the curtain on the da Vinci surgical robot, controlled by Mr Omer Karim, traditional laparoscopic tools, and a drop-in ultrasound transducer, all in action, inside me:

WARNING:  In no way am I a medic.  I dropped Biology, in favour of German at 'O' level.  I can't stomach fly-on-the-wall hospital documentaries.  But, I do have an insight into medical imaging, having worked on engineering programmes to deliver such systems into NHS hospitals across London, UK. For reasons I still can't fathom, I am fascinated by this video...