I think the most optimistic news of the day is clearly the surgery performed by a Greek doctor from China on a patient in Athens. Unbelievable? Unbelievable!
If we had read this a few years ago—actually, even now as we read it—it would have seemed like a science fiction scenario. And yet, yesterday, the Greek doctor, professor of medicine and director of the Urology Clinic at the University Hospital of Patras, Evangelos Liatsikos, while in Wuhan, China, performed surgery via the Internet, with the help of robotic technology, a patient with prostate cancer, in Athens. I should note here that doctors were present on-site so that, should the slightest issue arise with the connection, they could immediately take over the surgery.
If science has advanced to the point of making such great and technologically unimaginable leaps, then we can truly be optimistic about the future. In practice, wherever the appropriate technology and the necessary infrastructure are in place, the leading and most specialized surgeons will be able to operate on patients in every corner of the world, without having to travel thousands of kilometers.
Science is advancing at a pace that, until recently, we considered unimaginable. And this brings hope. Hope for millions of people waiting for a new treatment, a new drug, an answer to cancer and so many other difficult diseases. When a Greek doctor pioneers something so remarkable, it reminds us that tomorrow may be much better than we ever dared to imagine.
