Dubai: The doctor who performed a heart operation live on webcast in Dubai yesterday praised the procedure as a "major breakthrough for the Middle East region".
Dr Talib Majwal, Director of Interventional Cardiology at Dubai Heart Centre, carried out a critical procedure called "Unprotected Left Main" at Dubai Hospital in Al Baraha. The complex surgery was aired live via webcast to a prestigious medical conference in France.
The patient was Mohammad Al Sayed, a 29-year-old Egyptian. The conference was told he suffered crushing chest pains each time he played soccer. They were also told that coronary heart disease tends to strike people 10-15 years earlier in the Middle East than in Europe and North America.
Dr Talib said: "The operation has been a great success. I was not really expecting it to go as well. We need to follow up with the patient after one year to make sure that everything is still ok. He suffered mild chest pains during the procedure but that is normal because it was conducted at a very high pressure.
"This operation is a break-though for the region; we have taken the opportunity to show the conference that we [in the Middle East] are not inferior to others. We have showed that in the Arab world there are doctors performing the same operations as in Europe and North America and maybe even doing them better. This has put Dubai, the UAE and the whole Middle East in an exclusive club."
The EuroPCR conference is the official meeting of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions. It is one of the leading courses for cardiovascular specialists and features interactive sessions and case studies. The panel consists of about 12 doctors from across the world including surgeons and cardiologists."
Dr Talib said: "We conducted a global webcast like this before at a small conference in Italy but the EuroPCR conference, which is much bigger, had never received a webcast from outside of Europe or the US before today [yesterday]. We are planning another live transmission on June 23.
"The conference organisers wanted us to teach delegates how to carry out certain high-risk procedures. The advantage of the Unprotected Left Main procedure is there is no opening of the chest, no bleeding and no infection."
Dr. Majwal was due to perform another procedure at the Centre live through webcast to the same conference yesterday evening.
