Britain's Prince William watched two live operations yesterday (07.11.13).
The 31-year-old royal paid a visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea, London, where he witnessed the complex procedures in the Wolfson Surgical Suite after meeting the medical teams led by surgeons Stuart James and Pardeep Kumar.
The patients, a woman in her 60s undergoing breast reconstruction and a man in his 80s having a tumour from his bladder removed, allowed the second-in-line to the British throne to watch their operations, but did not get to meet him beforehand.
When Prince William was asked how he was feeling during the first procedure, he held his stomach and said: "Good. Still standing."
William was talked through the breast reconstruction surgery, which usually takes between six and eight hours to complete, before going on to look through a micro-vascular microscope placed above the lady.
As he looked through, he said: "That's amazing. That's incredible. Is this fairly major surgery?"
Mr James replied: "Think of it as long rather than major."
After the visit, a spokesperson for the hospital said: "Nobody fainted. The Duke was very calm, very interested in our pioneering, innovative surgery."
Prince William - who has been the President of the Royal Marsden Hospital since 2007 - followed in his late mother Princess Diana's footsteps as she witnessed heart surgery at Harefield hospital in Middlesex in 1996.
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