A team of thoracic surgeons from different countries headed by Dr. Diego Gonzalez Rivas had a two-day training visit at King Faisal Hospital (KFH) to introduce a uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) technique in Rwanda.

The medical camp ended on August 6.

Gonzalez is a Spanish pioneer surgeon in the world performing uniportal VATS surgery with the first case dated in 2010.

He is also trained in General Surgery and lung transplantation.

He came with Dr. Viktor Markushin from Russia, Dr. Souheil Bouri A from Morocco, and Dr. Sandrine Dackam from Switzerland.

According to Dr. Gonzalez, the classic approach (the open thoracic surgery) of doing a big incision of 20cms and open the chest with a manual operation is the most aggressive and painful operation for the body of a patient, which means that the patient has to stay in the hospital for 7-10 days.

For this new technique, Gonzalez Rivas said "We do an incision of 3cms and we work with an endoscopic camera to move instruments from outside while watching on the screen, in 2-3 days we can send the patient home.”

"It is less costly, less medication and the patient can go back to normal life in a period less than a week,” he added.

He also said that the machines and other equipment are affordable with good quality on the market.

"We are very much happy as King Faisal Hospital to be selected and for being recognized as a country to get this new technique, in our mission to be a hub for medical tourism, we like to bring any new development in medicine,” said Prof. Miliard Derbew, CEO of KFH.

"We have ongoing discussions to bring this VATS training to KFH and be a training hub for Africa as well,” he added.

Dr. Viktor Markushin, Russian Thoracic surgeon said: "Our target is to show the surgeon and the team how they can do the technique better and improve the knowledge that they may be able to do it in the future in this hospital.”

Maurice Musoni, the only cardio-thoracic surgeon in Rwanda at KFH, who was part of the training program said it is a reliable method of carrying out a surgery but requires more learning time to fully meet the standards.

He emphasized that it’s not every patient who can undergo this type of surgery "Patients undergo a selection to indicate whether they are suitable, it may be cancer, infections, injuries or a congenital disorder.”

"Older persons are less likely to undergo this type of operation since their respiratory reservoir are not enough as after being operated on, a patient must be able to breathe with one lung,” he explained

 "And also, if it’s lung cancer, it must not be at an advanced level.”

The doctors said that the training program will continue with periodic exchange of knowledge with the designated team from KFH.