Abstract :
I was delighted to have been accepted to visit and work in the urology unit at Mansoura. Professor Ahmed Shokeir, a true gentleman, confirmed my visit details, and made me feel very welcome and part of the team. This was not my first fellowship; I had previously worked in St. Augustine, in the robotic unit at Bordeaux, with Richard Gaston and Thierry Piechaud, and had visited Professor Gill’s department in Los Angeles on a robotic preceptorship. I am currently working with Peter Wiklund in Karolinska, doing robotic-assisted radical cystectomies with intracorporeal neobladders. This exposure to centres of excellence had confirmed to me the simple fact that good robotic surgery closely replicates the principles of open surgery, and I had been in- formed by senior colleagues that there is no better place in the world to observe the honed skills of open pelvic oncology and reconstructive surgery than in Mansoura. To achieve excellence in complex surgery needs a combination of excellent surgical technique and a suffi- cient volume of workload to master the procedure. The pelvic oncology team in Mansoura has abundant skills and very many patients who need their expertise.
