My Robotic nephrectomy on you tube?
As my friends and readers know, in May of 2007 I performed a live right kidney and adrenal gland removal for intuitive surgical. This was telecast to the AUA conference in Anaheim. My hospital helped me edit the video which I did a voice-over for and made into a nice 7 minute piece. I was told it was going on our hospitals website.
I then received an email that it was put on you tube. I am not sure how I feel about this. Exposure is good, but is this the correct forum? I have personally put videos on google video before, but not you tube.
I think the piece is pretty neat and can be viewed below.
I welcome comments about using youtube or other media to promote work. I think surgeons can learn by watching this piece and will find it interesting, but I wonder how it will be perceived.
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Comments
I am getting ready to have a partial vs. total nephrectomy next month on my left kidney due to a mod. large sized (8.5cmx10 cm)solitary lower pole angiomyolipoma. We initially treated it with embolization in July, which stopped the bleeding but the mass hasn't decreased in size much since then. I am curious if the prior embolization presents a risk factor in trying the robotic lap procedure or not. I had a MAG3 nuc scan with lasix washout, and while there is clearly no blood flow to the tumor anymore, I am concerned about fibrosis and scarring. It is having a mass effect on my bowel and I have had chronic LUQ pain since I uncerwent the procedure, so the next step is removal. I very much appreciated your video blog as it addressed alot of my fears about the unknown since I am a pediatrician and not a surgeon.
Posted by: Martha J Margreiter MD | November 29, 2007 12:31 PM
Prior embolization will make any surgery more difficult, rather open, lap, or robotic.
In experienced hands, any approach should not be that much of an issue in that regard.
The more complicated issue would be the size of the tumor, but with little blood supply I think a lap or robotic approach is a reasonable thing to do.
In these kind of operations, I always tell patients these is a chance you would need to convert to open surgery, and other than a few 1 cm incisions, it is not that much different than starting from the open approach.
Posted by: Domenico Savatta, MD | November 29, 2007 3:29 PM