Doctor Pedro Bretcha, a specialist in surgical oncology and minimally invasive surgery at Hospital Quirónsalud Torrevieja (Alicante) has been appointed President of the Spanish Society of Surgical Oncology (SEOQ), at the national conference held this weekend in Palma, which was attended by surgical oncology professionals. Doctor Bretcha joined the medical staff at Quirónsalud Torrevieja in 2001.
He was a spokesperson for SEOQ from 2010 to 2013, at which point he was appointed vice president of the society. He was also a member of the advisory board for the European Society of Surgical Oncology (ESSO), and coordinator of the Spanish surgical peritoneal oncology Group (GECOP) from 2011 to 2013.
Doctor Bretcha graduated in medicine and surgical treatment in 1992 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He completed the MIR examination (necessary to obtain a place as a specialist), at the Mutua de Terrasa Universitary Hospital. In 2000 he spent time in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York to perfect advanced laparoscopic surgery techniques. In 2002 he had the opportunity to stay at the National Cancer Institute (N.I.H.) in Washington, in the metabolic Surgery Unit, to learn about local-regional therapies with hyperthermic chemotherapy. This year he presented his doctoral thesis at Miguel Hernández University in Elche, called “Multimodal treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis using radical surgery with pro-operative intraperitoneal hyperthermic chemotherapy”.
Doctor Bretcha is one of a small number of Spanish specialists that has the surgical oncology certificate from the European Board of Surgery. This title is the only surgical oncology classification that exists in Spain and in the rest of Europe (there is no similar certification in the United States at present). He is also a member of the examining board of European surgical oncology from 2007.
Furthermore Doctor Pedro Bretcha is certified as a “Console Surgeon” by the Da Vinci Surgical System. This system of robotic surgery allows the surgeon to control the robot from a console and is meant for complicated interventions from a minimally invasive point of view. Da Vinci enhances a doctors eyesight, precision and control.
One of its main uses is for Surgical Oncology, focusing on local-regional therapies (intraperitoneal chemotherapy with hypothermia to treat peritoneal carcinomatosis, isolated hepatic perfusion, intraoperative radiotherapy, or radiofrequency ablation), Hepato-Biliary pancreatic surgery, and advanced laparoscopic surgery.
He has made numerous statements and is co-author of many communications given at conferences. He chaired the National SEOQ conference that took place in Alicante in 2013, and was invited as a speaker to the closing ceremony of the National Medical Student Conference in the same city.
Doctor Bretcha has collaborated as a volunteer for the medical Association GEDEOM, and he set up the Surgical Oncology service for Bluefields Hospital in Nicaragua in 2012.
About Quirónsalud
Quirónsalud is the most important hospital group in Spain, and the third largest in Europe. It can be found in 13 autonomous communities in Spain, has state-of-the-art technology and offers over 6,200 beds in more than 100 healthcare centres, such as Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Hospital Universitario Quirónsalud Madrid, Hospital Universitario Dexeus, Ruber, Centro Médico Teknon, Hospital La Luz, Policlínica de Guipúzcoa, Hospital Quirónsalud Valencia, etc., as well as a huge team of highly qualified professionals of international prestige.
We promote teaching (seven of our centres are university hospitals) and medical and scientific research (we run the FJD [Spanish acronym, Jiménez Díaz Foundation] Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria [Healthcare Research Institute], the only private research centre licensed by the Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación [Ministry for Research, Development and Innovation]).
Likewise, our healthcare service is organised in units and crosscutting networks that allow for the optimisation of accumulated experience at difference centres, and the clinical application of our research. Currently, Quirónsalud is developing many research projects across Spain, and many of its healthcare centres carry out cutting edge work in this field, as pioneers in different specialisations such as radiology, cardiology, endocrinology, gynaecology, neurology, oncology and sports medicine, among others.
