Dr. Khater shares takeaways from 2024 North American Robotic Urology Symposium

In this video, Nazih Paul Khater, MD, FACS, shares his takeaways from the 2024 North American Robotic Urology Symposium, held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Khater is an associate professor of urology and director of Urologic Research at LSU Health Shreveport.

Transcription:

The culture of the NARUS meeting is very broad. It's a mix of live surgeries and lectures, and you have an emphasis on video-based education so attendees can come, sit, and ask questions. It's very interactive. Of course, there's always a review of key supporting science. And at the same time, you have breakout sessions for pediatrics, allied health, and Young NARUS, as I specified. And this year, it was exceptional and amazing. We had a hands-on course that was terrific. It was a workshop on a single-port surgery, using hydrogen models with opportunities for attendees to come and practice robotic partial nephrectomy and robotic simple prostatectomy on an SP single-port model. There were discussions about the use of multi-port and single-port surgery, so that was extremely useful for the individuals who need this technology and this approach.

As I mentioned, the meeting also is tailored, so it has specific sessions based on prostate, kidney, bladder cancer, and even pediatrics, and of course, reconstructive surgery. The meeting also includes an important lecture toward the end of the meeting on complications in robotic surgery, where surgeons can show their unique expertise and share all the problems that occur during the case. They show you, on a big screen, how to deal with a big bleed or an injury and how to troubleshoot it. This is something that is extremely important for the attendees.

I need to mention to you that during this session, we had so many live surgeries. When you sit in this huge place, you have 2 giant screens that are running 2 live surgeries at the same time; let's say a kidney tumor here on monitor number 1 and a second kidney surgery on monitor number 2, and they're done by 2 surgeons in different locations. There are opportunities for live questions and answers. It's similar to as if you are sitting with them, and asking the surgeon specific questions, and this is really invaluable to the to the audience. To sum up things, I think this meeting is beyond exceptional. It has really a big emphasis on artificial intelligence, using all the platform that the urologist needs to guide the surgeon throughout an operation or even in preparation for the case. And at the same time, there is an adjacent exhibit hall that hosted all the industry, so when you want to join their corresponding booth, you can go and discover all the tools and they provide you with brochures. It's very informative.

There is, of course, a reception event during this meeting, where accepted video abstracts are presented. This is extremely important because we discuss academia and we discuss also resident participation and trainees. I had separate accepted videos, by the way, presented also with the urology chief resident from LSU Health Shreveport. This a fantastic meeting that I really look forward to. We are living the future in the present throughout this meeting. This is the era of robotic surgery, single-port, artificial intelligence, making minimally invasive surgery more minimal, and 3D printing to offer the best our patients.

This transcription was edited for clarity.