2024
GRAHAM WATSON, MD
2024 World Endo Award
Dr. Watson qualified in medicine in 1976 from Cambridge University and King’s College Hospital. My urology training was at the Institute of Urology where I had the good fortune to have John Wickham as my trainer. It was John Wickham who suggested that I find a way of breaking stones using a laser. After assessing a wide variety of lasers I found I could fragment very dark stones using pulsed lasers with the fibre in contact with the stone. I was interested in assessing pulsed dye lasers so I arranged to spend a year at the Massachusetts General Hospital collaborating with the Candela Laser Corporation. The optimum parameters were found and the laser was tested in the pig ureter. This laser was extremely safe to use having minimal action on tissue. However the animal model showed that the size of ureteroscope was the most important factor. We launched the laser along with a miniaturised ureteroscope of just 7F. This made ureteroscopy easier and safer.
In 2008 I was invited to teach PCNL in Sri Lanka. I went on to hold courses there training UK trainees alongside Sri Lankan trainees. We invited faculty from India and China and my technique evolved. With my enthusiasm for global training fired up I went on to teach PCNL in Senegal, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Benin, Ghana, Gambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi and Mauritania. PCNL is now being practiced independently in 8 of these countries. I have used a charity of which I am co-chairman, The Meditech Trust, to help with equipment.