22 UROLOGY, URO-ONCOLOGY AND SEXOLOGY UPDATE Dr Greg Boustead Dr Boustead trained in Medicine and Urology in South Africa and moved to the UK and underwent further postgraduate training as a Senior Registrar in the UK between 1993 and 1995 before taking up a Consultant appointment at The Lister, Stevenage Hertfordshire in 1996. He was Clinical Director at The Hertfordshire and South Bedfordshire Urology Cancer Centre in Hertfordshire UK with a team of 8 Urological Surgeons. This is specialist urological oncology and robotic centre doing over 200 robotic cases per year. He specialized in robotic and open surgery for prostate and bladder cancer and reconstruction. Dr Boustead is one of the pioneers of Robotic Surgery in South Africa. In 2013 he led a team at Pretoria Urology Hospital that performed the rst Da Vinci robotic prostatectomy in South Africa. In 2014 he assisted in performing the rst robotic nephrectomy in South Africa and in 2015 performed the rst Robotic assisted cystectomy and total bladder reconstruction in South Africa. He has trained and accredited 30 surgeons at Netcare Robotic Centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria Urology Hospital. Dr Boustead led the Netcare Da Vinci Robotic Surgery program in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, South Africa from 2014 to 2018, setting up four of the six robotic programs in the country. He is currently in private practise at Life St George's Hospital in Port Elizabeth. This October was the tenth anniversary of the rst robotic prostatectomy case in South Africa. Dr Greg Boustead is the chairman of the newly formed South Africa Urology Association Robotic Surgery Group and we asked him about robotic surgery in South Africa. You were one of the rst trainers/proctors in South Africa. Where were you trained in robotic surgery and what prompted you to move to South Africa to train urologists here in robotic surgery? We got our rst da Vinci robot in 2008 at East and North Hertfordshire Cancer Centre in the UK. We were early adopters of the technology, being just the fth robotic centre in the UK. I initially underwent training in Paris, and subsequently further training in Strasbourg. There were no simulators available and we had to use a complete da Vinci set up with training instruments to gain skills, prior to embarking on a proctorship program. I proctored the rst robotic prostatectomy cases at Pretoria Urology in October 2013, and signed off the rst eight surgeons at this facility. I subsequently returned to South Africa on a three year consulting contract to start Netcare's robotic surgery program at Waterfall city in Midrand and Christian Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town. During this time, I trained a further 30 surgeons. It's been a while since robotic surgery was rst introduced to South Africa. How have robotic surgeons been trained and certied in South Africa until now, and how does this differ from other countries such as the UK and the USA? This October will, in fact, be the 10th anniversary of the rst robotic prostatectomy case in South Africa done at Pretoria Urology Hospital. The training pathway has certainly evolved since those early days. The rst simulators were available in 2013 and the surgeons were required to do 30 hours of simulation time with satisfactory performance. They then attended a training course at one of the accredited intuitive surgical centres in Europe. Following successful completion of this course, they entered into live surgical training with a proctor supervising. Today there are more sophisticated simulators available with well structured training pathways catering for surgeons and theatre staff. Today we are also less reliant on international proctors and there are a number of locally accredited trainers. Certication varies around the world. In the USA credentialing is devolved to local hospital level, while in the UK certication is provided by the distributors. Interview with
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