Surgeons in operating theatres around the world will from today be showing off their skills in Dundee— without ever leaving home, writes Marjory Inglis, health reporter.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, live pictures will be beamed to an international conference in the city.

Around 300 specialists from all over Europe are gathering in Dundee for a three-day international conference.

The city pioneered keyhole surgery and continues to make advances in the technique.

Keyhole surgeon Mr Francesco Polignano, based at Ninewells Hospital, has organised the conference where those gathered in the city will be able to interact and ask questions of the surgeons while they are in their operating theatres around the world.

The conference will take place in Dundee University’s West Park Conference Centre, where four large screens will let co-ordinators switch between live operations going on around the world.

“We have invited around 30 surgeons to participate and they will be working in their own theatre, in their own city, operating on their own patients,” said Mr Polignano.

“They will be broadcasting the surgery to Dundee.”

Surgeons always speak to people during operations —whether they be trainees or international observers visiting their particular hospital.

Modern technology allows that to happen on a much bigger scale with observers in a remote location.

“The sites will be streaming their operations live, sending pictures into Dundee through internet broadband,” Mr Polignano added.

Tomorrow he will perform a liver operation on a Tayside patient that will be beamed from Ninewells to the conference centre.

He said Dundee was one of the few hospitals in the UK where a whole range of surgical operations were performed using keyhole techniques.

He said that was “rare.”

In other hospitals there tended to be one specialist experienced in a specific operation but in Dundee key- hole surgery was performed on the liver, pancreas, bowel and other areas.

Mr Polignano said surg- eons had to view a certain number of operations using keyhole techniques before they were equipped to perform them themselves.

From an educational point of view the Dundee conference was very attractive to specialists who could view a number of operations in one location and discuss complexities and difficulties as they occurred in a live situation.