Dr. Diego Gonzalez Rivas’ trip to the Philippines in November 2015

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) was introduced in the Philippines in 1992. Initially, multiport VATS was utilized for lung resections in 2012. In 2015, after attending a couple of Asian uniportal VATS workshops, where one of the lecturers/surgeons was Dr. Diego Gonzalez-Rivas, Filipino surgeons were able to do uniportal VATS for a lobectomy in 2015. In November 2015, Dr. Rivas went to the Philippines to give lectures and conduct a VATS pre-congress workshop during the 25^th Clinical Congress of the Association of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Asia (ATCSA). He then went to the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) where he delivered a lecture and performed a uniportal VATS lobectomy on a 64-year-old male patient who had Adenocarcinoma of the left lower lobe. Anesthetic and surgical techniques are described. Uniportal VATS is a safe procedure and oncologic results are comparable with resections done using open thoracotomy. The patients’ quality of life is better because of significantly less pain after the procedure.