Peter L. Rosenblatt, M.D.
Mount Auburn Hospital
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Hi, I’m Peter Rosenblatt. I’m a urogynecologist at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Director of Urogynecology there and at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. This year, I am the program chair for the video committee here at the AAGL in Las Vegas.

We received a record number of video submissions this year—136, which were very high quality. There were some terrific videos this year. [We’re] getting more videos from the oncology people, and a lot from urogynecology, and general GYN, as well as hysteroscopy.

The video sessions here at the AAGL have always been the most popular parts of the meeting. The video sessions this year have been, every one of them, have been packed. But there’s a lot of very interesting teaching that goes on at the video sessions. People can check out new techniques, new instrumentation, and they are very popular. So video education, I think, is an essential part of the AAGL experience.

We see some basic laparoscopic surgery this year. There have been a number of videos on endometriosis and hysterectomy. But there also are very challenging cases, especially the oncology cases this year, and a lot of pelvic floor reconstruction with sacrocolpopexy [and] sacrocervicalplexy. So we really have a great variety of videos this year.

The other thing that we’re seeing this year, more than any other year, is robotic surgery. I have a video myself on laparoscopic sacrocervicalplexy for uterine preservation, using robotic surgery. And robotics has become very popular, mostly in GYN among the oncologists and the urogynecologists and pelvic reconstructive surgeons. What’s driving robotics is multifactorial. First of all, there’s obviously more units available throughout the United States. Consumers are asking for robotic options in gynecology and urology and other subspecialities of surgery. And, most of the AAGL fellowships now will offer some training in robotic surgeries. I think robotic surgery is really here to stay and we’ll be seeing more and more of that in future years.

One of the more interesting videos that I submitted and we’re showing here this year at AAGL is a technique that I developed with one of my partners, Tony DiSciullo, up in the Cambridge Massachusetts area. And it’s a laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy with transcervical morcellation. That is, the entire operation is done with 5 millimeter trocars and [a] 5 millimeter laparoscope, and two 5 millimeter lower quadrant trocars. When we do the supracervical hysterectomy, we then core out the cervix transvaginally using a Gynecare Morcellex device. What that does is it not only gives us access to the abdominal cavity, but it cores out the endocervix, which should decrease the risk of cancer of the endocervix. It also reduces, or eliminates, the chances of postoperative cyclic bleeding. And it then gives us access, so we can put the morcellator directly in the abdominal cavity and morcellate transcervically. The patients have very little pain, and go home the next day, usually just with ibuprofen. So we really are excited about that minimally invasive approach to laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy.

I would encourage gynecologists across the country and throughout the world to consider submitting videos to the AAGL. It’s a wonderful process; it’s a great meeting. It grows every year and the videos are a huge part of the education process. So make sure you start recording your cases, get some video editing software, narrate, and submit it for next year. We look forward to seeing your videos for next year.