Through My Eyes - Spain's 'Robin Hood surgeon'

When CGTN meets Dr. Diego Gonzalez Rivas at the Vithas Hospital in the Aravaca neighborhood of Madrid, one of the patients he performed life-saving surgery on 24 hours earlier is already walking around the hospital garden.

Robert Agyapong visited five hospitals in the UK but with tumors in both lungs he was told there was no hope. Then his wife Rocío saw Dr. Gonzalez Rivas on Spanish TV, got in touch, and days later Robert is recovering from a life-saving operation.

Gonzalez Rivas's uniportal method of non-invasive surgery saves lives and allows patients to recover more quickly.

He holds the Guinness world record for operating in the most countries and is a pioneer in non-invasive surgery, taking on only the most complex cases.

The surgeon has lost count of the lives he's saved and says he was inspired by his own near-death experience.

He told CGTN: "The bomb attack in Bali by Al Queda in 2002, we were there. I was surfing with friends. We were like 80 meters away and then the bomb exploded. So we were injured a little bit by the blast but lucky that we didn't die.That day was a beginning for my life, for many things. Life is so fragile, you know?"

"I learned that I was like my patients, they were like me before and suddenly one day become ill and wake up with a disease. So you need to understand them at this moment. So this is why I like to teach my patients, not only from the technical point of view, like removing the tumor, but also being a psychologist for them.

"Words are curative too, it is very important to talk to them, to understand them, because they always have a story."

One day Gonzalez Rivas is on a private jet on his way to operate on a billionaire patient, the next he's operating for free on an emergency in a poor nation.

Among his honors, he has received the China National Medical Award in the Innovation and New Techniques category. It's the top award given in China's medical world and he was the first foreigner to receive the honor.

Dr. Diego Gonzalez Rivas: Spain's Robin Hood surgeon?

"I don't think it's a good definition but it could be close," he continues. "It's true that I operate on rich patients sometimes but I also do 60 percent of my activities for free around the world.

"When I go to poor countries, you cannot charge money to the patients, of course, because it's the only chance they have to live, so you can imagine how rewarding it is to do that, much more for me than, you know, being paid a lot of money by a rich guy.

"This is the work that makes me happy."

If you had to pick one surgery that makes you happy, which one would that be?

"This is a very difficult question because I do a lot of difficult surgeries around the world but I can say one that I think was especially difficult.

"A 12 year old girl in Congo, she had a key inside her lungs, a big key. I don't know how she did it, maybe some viral challenge or something like that.

"She cannot breathe, she was dying slowly, she saw me on television in Kinshasa and came to the hospital looking for me. We removed it and we saved her, she's very happy."

Do you believe everybody should have the same access to health care?

"Yes, definitely. But the reality is different. Not everybody has access to health care. Not everybody can be operated on by experienced teams.

"Not everybody can be operated by minimal invasive surgery because it is the most demanding surgery and the technology is not available everywhere.

"In many countries, they don't have the resources or the experienced surgeons, so they need to be operated by classic open-surgery techniques.

"In some places they cannot even offer normal healthcare because the patient needs to pay everything.

"When they have a dangerous condition, some of them die because they cannot afford an operation. I think in Spain we are lucky that we have our health care, health care for everyone so people don't need to pay a lot of money for being treated.

"We are lucky in Spain, I think, and other countries in Europe to have good healthcare but it is not the reality in the rest of the world."

What is your relationship with China?

"When I arrived to China in 2010, it was, for me unbelievable, amazing. Shanghai's beautiful northern city like in the future. And then I went to the hospital. I was impressed about the volume of the operation, they were doing 30 to 40 cases per day at that time (and thought) 'wow, nobody in the world does 30 to 40 cases a day.'

"So I started to collaborate with them and did operations, I showed them my technique and they loved it so we established a very good feeling, a good relationship.

"We started training other surgeons in 2013 and then more and more people coming.

"China has the best nature, best culture, best history, amazing people. They treat me like a Chinese (person). They offer me everything, so I can say only good things about China.

"I love China. I love the quality of the surgery there, it's the best in the world, you know, the best surgeons are in China because of volume and because they are hard workers.

"I like that philosophy. I like the Chinese mentality that there's always a way to do it better and improve, I don't like being in the comfort zone,

"So I this is why I love to be in China and this is why I spend five months a year in China."

We once read that you worked a full week in the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital and then you traveled 7,000 km in four different cities around China just on the weekend. You must have a lot of air miles.

"(Laughs) Yes, I am used to doing that very often, last year we established a training center in Lanzhou where we train surgeons and we have another center in Suzhou, also in Guangzhou.

"On weekends sometimes they prepare master classes that I give in Sichuan Province, and then I go to Beijing on Sundays. It's a lot of a lot of miles, as you mentioned. Yes, I'm used to that."

The technology, the robotics, it's all very exciting, tell us a little bit about that.

"China now is leading this in the world with new platforms. We have a robotic system from the United States established in the world (called) Da Vinci.

"But the Chinese are very smart and they develop even better robots.

"Two years ago a company contacted me to help them in the development of this amazing new platform with a new technology called Shu Rui, a robot developed in Shanghai by Chinese engineers.

They were working on it for 15 years and no-one knew about it - I didn't even know about it. It's like a single port robot with my technique, it's based on my technique, uniportal. So it's a robot with one arm, one single arm that displays four instruments and one camera. It's amazing.

"This is one of the robots that is made in China with Chinese technology. And this, in my opinion, is better technology than the American technology for the classic robots.

"Now, especially now with the help of the artificial intelligence, there will be a lot of improvements in in health care, the diagnosis of the patient for example, because with artificial intelligence, you see a CT scan, you see a lesion, and you can say with 99 percent of precision that this is malignant or benign.

"Definitely artificial intelligence will help surgical treatment and healthcare around the world. It's a reality now."

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