ST. PETERSBURG — The decades-long search for the G spot, considered by many to be the holy grail of women's sexual pleasure, has reached the Sunshine City.

Dr. Adam Ostrzenski, a semiretired gynecologist with an office on Central Avenue, said he discovered it last fall during a postmortem exam of an 83-year-old woman at a university in his native Poland.

His findings, detailed in an article published Wednesday in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, have brought him worldwide attention, from the Los Angeles Times to the British Broadcasting Corp. His phone has been ringing nearly nonstop. He's flying to New York in a few days to appear on the popular TV show The View.

Is the 71-year-old physician reveling in this burst of fame?

"Honestly, I don't like it," he said.

But isn't the attention to his life's work a good thing?

"It also takes me away from my work," he said Wednesday afternoon, conducting what he said was his 57th media interview.

At his St. Petersburg practice, the Institute of Gynecology, he performs reconstructive and cosmetic gynecological procedures. He says he has developed seven new techniques for vaginal rejuvenation. His website lists workshops for physicians and procedures such as vaginoplasty, G-Spotplasty, and thin and thick labia labioplasty.

His daughter, general practioner Kasia Ostrzenska, said that while in surgery, many times he has observed a vaginal tissue structure that he wanted to know more about, and this helped prompt the study.

He traveled last September to Poland, where regulations permit dissection of human remains soon after death, when it's easier to see fine distinctions in tissue.

He said he peeled back the six layers of the cadaver's vaginal wall and found a sac structure between the fifth and sixth layers that housed grape-like clusters of erectile tissue.

The dissection took seven hours for the Poland-trained physician and anatomist, who said he was inspired by the first principles of medicine — "first you have to establish the anatomy.'' If confirmed by further investigation, he said, he hopes his finding will help rewrite anatomy books.

He plans to return to Poland in May for additional studies.

Some in his field are cheering him. Isolating a unique structure capable of boosting women's orgasmic powers should lay to rest the doubts of those who question its existence, said Dr. Andrew Goldstein, sexual medicine specialist and director of the Centers for Vulvovaginal Disorders in Annapolis, Md.

And while the psychological aspects of female desire get more attention, Ostrzenski's report recognizes that "women have anatomy issues that contribute to their sexual problems," said Dr. Michael Krychman, director of the Southern California Center for Sexual Health. "There are remedies — physical remedies — that can be brought to bear on those."

Others see fatal flaws in the study and are busily preparing scientific rebuttals.

Beverly Whipple is the Rutgers University sexologist who popularized the name "G spot" as coauthor of a 1982 book on the subject. She's among critics complaining that his study doesn't point out research on the complexity of the female orgasm.

"No, there's not an 'it'," Whipple said. "It is not one entity."

Nor, she and her colleagues say, did Ostrzenski show that the G spot he found has nerve endings or that it has any role in female sexual arousal.

Ostrzenski agrees his study was small and limited and requires more inquiry. He understands the negative reactions. "Everything which is new creates skepticism," he said.

Nevertheless, he considers his study a key moment in the search to determine whether a G spot actually exists.

Dr. Kasia Ostrzenska, while dismayed at the negative reaction, said she's pleased that her father's work also is getting positive attention. Many of her patients are women who suffer from libido issues as they get older.

"Once we settle down in a relationship, have children, have careers, we can have a difficult time finding that 'on button,' " said Ostrenska, 43. "My husband can walk past me while I'm brushing my teeth and he's ready. We are different creatures sexually.''

Ostrenska, known to her patients as Dr. Kasia, is a contributor to the Times' Personal Best health section, where she has written about topics such as sexuality, nutrition, memory loss and fitness. She even teaches Zumba classes in a studio adjoining the Bay Medical Center offices at 7001 Central Ave., where she and her father practice.

Born in Poland, she brought her family to St. Petersburg from Washington, D.C., when she was pregnant with her daughter, who's nearly 11. Her parents had moved here not long before and urged her to move down.

"I'm just very proud of my dad,'' she said.

"It's nice he has some shimmer because he deserves it. He's a good man and a good dad.''

Information from the Los Angeles Times and staff writer Charlotte Sutton was used in this report.