Dr. Rodney Landreneau: what does not kill you makes you stronger
The 2nd International Conference of Asia Thoracoscopic Surgery Education Program (ATEP) was held successfully in Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seoul, Korea from Dec. 4th to 5th, 2015. In the conference, Dr. Rodney Landreneau, from Allegheny General Hospital, brought us a comprehensive speech on the history of VATS and as well memorized Dr. Tsuguo Naruke’s great contribution to the development of VATS, which in turn also encouraging all the surgeons to work hard to contribute to the benefit of patients. During this conference, the Editorial Office of Journal of Visualized Surgery (JOVS) had the great honor to have an interview with Dr. Landreneau (Figure 1).
Dr. Rodney Jerome Landreneau, MD, who specializes in a variety of cancers, including pleural mesothelioma and lung cancer, is now the director of the Esophageal and Lung Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He recently left his home state of Louisiana after serving at the Ochsner Cancer Institute. Dr. Landreneau held several administrative and clinical roles as the director of the cancer institute and the vice-chairman of the department of surgery. Shortly after his arrival at Ochsner in 2013, Dr. Landreneau performed the first surgical debulking/hyperthermic chemoperfusion procedure on a pleural mesothelioma patient in the state of Louisiana. Although the procedure is done by specialists in only a few cancer centers around the country, Dr. Landreneau had performed it many times before at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center, where he worked for more than 20 years.
Dr. Landreneau’s surgical expertise included both minimally invasive and video-assisted surgery. He does laser and stent therapies, lung and esophageal cancer surgeries, and editor to two thoracic surgery textbooks, author to 50 book chapters on surgical topics and more than 260 peer-reviewed publications.
Not only sharing with us his perspective on the changes in thoracic surgery and his expectation on its future development, Dr. Landreneau also told us skills should be possessed for a successful VATS surgery and gave his precious advice based on his experience to those medical college students for their better development.
At the end of the interview, when talking about “what encourage you to be who you’re now”, Dr. Landreneau mentioned to us the inspiration from his medical family at first and his first surgical experience with thoracoscopic device. More importantly, his unyielding spirit drives him to move forward all the time—what does not kill you makes you stronger (Figure 2)!
Acknowledgements
None.
Footnote
Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.
References
- Gao S. Interview with Dr. Rodney Landreneau. Asvide 2016;3:002. Available online: http://www.asvide.com/ articles/753
(Science Editor: Skylar Gao, JOVS, jovs@amepc.org)
Cite this article as: Gao S. Dr. Rodney Landreneau: what does not kill you makes you stronger. J Vis Surg 2016;2:2.
