Right now, I am on a Air China flight heading to Beijing after finishing up the first date on Dr. Diego Gonzalez Rivas, “7 Days, 7 Cities” Uniportal VATS instructional tour. I am here at the invitation of Dr. Gonzalez to chronicle the making of his second documentary film.
Our first stop was Wenzhou, China where Dr. Gonzalez Rivas gave a lecture and performed a right middle lobectomy on a patient with a large lung lesion.
It’s a different kind of experience for me, and it takes getting used to – knowing where NOT to stand, or walk so Danilo can get his shots. The whole live camera thing is a little bit off-putting. Everything is a production, nothing is left to chance. It can’t be – like the title of the film – it’s a fast trip, in and out. But it’s also an amazing experience. Danilo is amazingly talented (and very nice), and it’s hard to reconcile what looks like every day, run of the mill stuff with the footage he manages to capture. It’s strange and wonderful to see surgery thru his eyes. It’s also nice to have some camaraderie in the operating room as ‘media’.
The case went beautifully – another uniportal success story!
Goodbye Wenzhou – now off to Beijing!
**”I’m with the band” is my own lame joke because it says everything about my personality that I liken spending time in the operating room with a thoracic surgeon akin to traveling on the road with Mick Jagger back in his heyday.
Thoracic Surgery 