Madrid surgeon Dr. Diego Rivas holds the world record for operating in the most countries. He’s also received the top Chinese medical award - the first foreigner to do so.
CGTN’s Ken Browne went to meet him.
#throughmyeyes #cgtn #china
CGTN’s Ken Browne went to meet him.
#throughmyeyes #cgtn #china
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NewsTranscript
00:00Dr. Diego Rivas faces life and death situations every day, but it was his own near-death experience
00:08that inspired him to help save others.
00:12The bomb attack in Bali by Al-Qaeda in 2012, no, 2002, 2002, we were there, I was surfing
00:22with friends.
00:23We were walking to the disco, we were like 80 meters far, far away, and then the bomb
00:28exploded.
00:29So we were injured a little bit by the blast, but then we were lucky that we didn't die.
00:37But that day was a beginning for my life, for many things.
00:42So is it fair to say you are Spain's Robin Hood surgeon?
00:46I don't think it's a good definition, but could be close.
00:50It's true that I operate on rich patients sometimes, I get money from them, but I also
00:55do 60% of my activities for free around the world.
01:00When I go to poor countries, you cannot charge money to the patients, of course, because
01:04it's the only chance they have to live.
01:07If you had to pick one surgery, which one would that be?
01:11I can say one that I think was especially difficult, 12-year-old lady in Congo, that
01:17she had a key inside the lungs, a key, a big key.
01:22I don't know how she did, she cannot breathe.
01:25She was dying slowly, and we removed it and we saved her, she's very happy.
01:29Tell us about your relationship with China.
01:31I love China, I love the quality of the surgery there, it's the best in the world.
01:36The best are in China, because of volume, and because of their hard work.
01:41Best nature, best culture, best history, amazing people.
01:46So this is why I love to be in China, and this is why I spend five months a year in
01:50China even more.
01:51The technology, the robotics, it's all very exciting.
01:55China now is leading this in the world with new platforms.
01:59We have the robotic system from the United States, classically established in the world,
02:05the Da Vinci in China, but the Chinese are very smart and they develop even better robots.
02:13Two years ago a company contacted me to help them in the development of this amazing new
02:19platform with a new technology called Surui.
02:22It's a robot developed in Shanghai by Chinese engineers.
02:27It's like a single port robot, with my technique, it's based on my technique, a new portal.
02:32So it's a robot with one arm, one single arm, that displays four instruments and one camera.
02:39It's amazing.
02:40Especially now with the help of the artificial intelligence, there will be a lot of improvements
02:46in the healthcare, also the diagnosis of the patient, because you know, with artificial
02:51intelligence you can detect, okay, you see a CT scan, you see a lesion, and you can
02:56say with 99% of precision that, okay, this is malignant or benign.
03:01So definitely artificial intelligence will help the surgical treatment and the healthcare
03:06around the world.
03:07It's a reality now.