Dr. Kate O'Hanlan is a gynecologic oncologist whose research and publishing efforts have been focused on the multiple applications of minimally invasive (laparoscopic) approaches for hysterectomy and staging of gynecologic cancers. She studied medicine at the Medical College of Virginia and did her residency training at Atlanta Medical Center.  

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 then published many journal articles on laparoscopic techniques which she pioneered, confirming that patients benefited from the much smaller incisions of laparoscopic surgery, compared to patients who underwent surgeries with traditional open-incision techniques.  

​By 2006, Dr. O'Hanlan saw that laparoscopic technology could be used to perform 98% of benign and most (but not all) gynecologic cancer conditions; but even with such well-documented benefits, there was a slow uptake in the mainstream use of these procedures. Thus, she founded the Laparoscopic Institute for Gynecologic Oncology (LIGO) and wrote the course in 2006, certified by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She has taught over 2,600 surgeons from 43 countries around the world minimally invasive surgeries, using both cadavers and pelvic simulators. Dr. O’Hanlan has also been a frequently-invited speaker at the annual clinical meeting of the international Society for Gynecological Oncologists (SGO) and the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL), with 15 poster and video presentations, and 60 journal publications to date.

 

Latest Posts from Kate O'Hanlan, MD

The Cost and Value of Floseal Matrix in Gynecologic Surgery