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Physicians from six countries take part in endoscopy training in Beijing

Despite the air conditioner being on full blast to counter the sweltering heat, sweat droplets lingered on the foreheads of doctors at a simulation facility in Beijing in June, as physician Mustafa Ahmed Haridy Abdellah slowly navigated an endoscope through the digestive tract of an anesthetized pig to identify a malignant lesion.

Observed by a team of physicians and interpreters, the 35-year-old Egyptian doctor had just taken over the device from Sergei Skupchenko, Abdellah's Russian peer, who had carefully threaded the endoscope into the pig. As Abdellah identified the lesion via a live feed, he delicately began to snip away to remove the infected tissue with millimeter precision.

Under the guidance of senior Chinese endoscopists, Abdellah completed the procedure, an act that was met with a hushed round of applause from the observing physicians, before collecting a specimen and handing over the controls.