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ΣΥΝΈΝΤΈΥΞΗ
Tεύχος 30 | Iούλιος-Αύγουστος 2024
Η ακόλουθη συνέντευξη πραγματοποιήθηκε μέσω Zoom. Απομαγνητοφώνηση & επιμέλεια κειμένου: Θεόδωρος Σπίνος, ειδικευόμενος Ουρολόγος & Φίλιππος Νικητάκης, μέλη συντακτικής ομάδας του Newsletter.
Theodoros Spinos (T.S.): How did you decide to become a urologist?
Prof. Anthony Mundy: Well, I didn't really. As much as anything else, it was fate. I knew I didn't want to be a physician or any variation of that theme. I always fancied the idea of being a surgeon. I did a bit of this and a bit of that during my training. Basically, I didn't like cardiac surgeons or neurosurgeons. Many patients in general surgery had cancer and were dead within a year. Then, I went to work at Guy's Hospital, in London. There I met a very pleasant man who came up, shook me by the hand, and said “Good morning. I'm Hugh Kinder. I think you're coming to work with me in urology." So, I decided on the spot, I wanted to be a urologist.
T.S.: What was the driving force that led you to specialize in Reconstructive Urology?
Prof. Anthony Mundy: Well, things are never quite as simple and straightforward as the questions suggest. I quite liked Urology, and I quite liked urologists. But that doesn't mean I liked everything. Particularly I disliked going to the operating theatre every Friday evening, for somebody who had got a stone stuck in their ureter. Bearing in mind, this was the 70s and 80s, long before any of the currently available flexible scopes or radiological techniques. So, when somebody investigated and came up with a brand-new idea for the nephroscope, as far as I was concerned, this was a damn good reason to give up doing stones, by learning the new technique. I got fed up with doing cystoscopies for recurrent bladder tumors, mainly because in those days you had a battery-driven scope and a little light bulb on the end of the scope. The bulb kept falling off, which was rather irritating. So that put me off bladder cancer. After a while TURPs were boring. I used to do six TURs every morning at the beginning of each of my operating lists. I got a bit fed up with that. On the other hand, there were all these patients with urethral strictures and other types of problems, which nobody else seemed to want to deal with. So, I did it.
Filippos Nikitakis (F.N.): What specific challenges are typically encountered in
the practice of Reconstructive Urology that distinguish it from the other fields of Urology?
Prof. Anthony Mundy: Well, I don't think life is quite as simple as some of these questions would indicate. The main challenge at the time that the early stages of my career were developing, was how to deal with patients who had problems that didn't settle down with the treatments that were available. For example, I used to do an outpatient clinic every Friday afternoon for patients with urethral strictures and I used to use straightforward urethral dilators, Clutton's Sounds in particular. We would have our patients all standing up in a row and then I would dilate and go from one to the next to the next to the next. I would do 10 or 12 urethral dilatations in about half an hour. In between each procedure, we would wipe the device clean with a swab impregnated with an antibiotic solution, which was basically iodine, and then go on to the next patient. After we had passed the instrument, the patient would get dressed and go away. Life was a little bit different in those days.
F.N.: In your opinion, what fundamental character traits are essential for a surgeon to successfully build his career?
Prof. Anthony Mundy: I think that changes with time. When I became a consultant urologist, there were 90 urologists in the United Kingdom, one in each major hospital around the country, and there were 12 trainees, all of whom were based in London. Now, instead of 90 consultant urologists, there are 2000. So, the job is altogether different. We used to work a lot harder. When you were on duty for the week, you lived in the hospital for the week. Because we were all in there together, we used to have our own restaurant and our own bar in the hall of residence within the
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