Dr. Kate O'Hanlan is a gynecologic oncologist whose research and publishing focus has been on the multiple applications of the total laparoscopic hysterectomy and laparoscopic staging and management of the gynecologic cancers.

Dr. Kate O'Hanlan is a graduate of Duke University and the Medical College of Virginia. She did her residency at Atlanta Medical Center, completed a subspecialty fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and taught the use of open techniques in gynecologic cancer surgeries at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and Stanford University. In 1992, she began developing her technique for Total Laparoscopic Hysterectomy (TLH) and related cancer procedures that met all the surgical and oncologic standards she was trained to observe. She published many journal articles confirming that patients benefited from much smaller incisions, with less pain, less blood loss, shorter hospital stays and much quicker returns to work than other patients treated using the traditional open technique.

Dr. O'Hanlan saw that laparoscopic technology could be used to perform nearly every benign and cancer gynecologic surgery, but even with such well-documented benefits, there was a slow uptake in the mainstream use of these procedures. She founded the Laparoscopic Institute for Gynecologic Oncology (LIGO) in 2006 with the goal of increasing physician utilization of these minimally invasive techniques. LIGO produced the first American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) CME certified course focused entirely on TLH to teach these procedures directly to surgeons, using both cadavers and pelvic simulators. The creation of LIGO is a direct expression of Dr. O'Hanlan's commitment to ensure an effective learning forum for fellow surgeons that in turn, benefits their patients. Find out about this year's LIGO courses.

She has performed over 1,300 total and radical laparoscopic hysterectomies, and taught these techniques at workshop sessions for the annual clinical meetings of the Society for Gynecologic Oncologists and the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists, with 12 poster and video presentations, and 13 journal publications focused on TLH and laparoscopic oncological surgery.

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