President’s Report 2016
The South African Society of Endoscopic Surgeons
Dear Member
Spring is officially in the air, heralded by the warm weather and Kites in the sky
This bodes well for our upcoming congress in Champagne Sports Conference Centre from the 27th to 30th October.
To those of you already registered, I look forward to catching up with you once again and will hopefully enthral you with our star-studded cast of 9 international guest speakers. It promises to be a great meeting. To those who haven’t registered, it’s never to late, check out the link below: http://www.sases2016.co.za/
It has been two years since I took over the presidency of the society, and the one observation I have made is that we have evolved into what can only be described as a slow-moving juggernaut. Over time we have managed to set in place various programs and policies to help benefit and uplift our members, and these days all that is left is for our members to capitalise on these efforts.
Travelling Fellowships
This program has been running for roughly 5 years now and has proven one of our greatest successes. Members are afforded the opportunity to apply for 3 international travelling fellowships to help further their laparoscopic skills. Credit must be given to our sponsors Medtronic, Karl-Storz and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) without whom, none of this would be possible.
- Medtronic sponsorship is to Amsterdam to work with Willem Bemelman
- Karl-Storz sponsorship is to Bavaria to work with Markus Walz
- J&J sponsorship is to Leuven to work with Andre D’Hoore
Congratulations to this years recipients viz.
Dr Ebrahim Delwai
Dr Mark Hampton
Dr Zafar Khan
We look forward to hearing their feedback.
A special thanks to Eugenio Panieri for his tireless efforts in helping to streamline and co-ordinate the fellowships.
Red Cross Training Centre
Another tireless effort is co-ordinating the training centre. Special mention must be made of Alp Numanoglu who is the driving force behind the unit.
He is now ably assisted by Clive van Geems, the course co-ordinator (another SASES venture that has proven fruitful) and they have managed to move from strength to strength.
The unit offers courses for a wide variety of individuals viz.
Surgeons with our advanced laparoscopic courses
Students and Registrars with the basic laparoscopy courses
Nurses – our nursing laparoscopy course have proven quite popular and we look forward to hosting more in the future
Trade – we have recently successfully completed a course for sales reps hosted by their company to familiarise themselves with the equipment
Please look out on our website and our flyers for dates for the upcoming courses, you won’t be disappointed.
Webinars
A congress in the comfort of your own home, well not quite, but close enough
SASES offers 4 meetings a year whereby members can login from home and participate in a discussion on a surgically relevant topic. Incisional hernia was the topic presented by Dino Sofianos a fortnight ago and was very well attended. CPD points are on offer, need I say more.
Laparoscopic Appendectomy Collaboration with Medscheme
As you may be aware, we have undertaken a pilot study into the costing of laparoscopic appendectomy in an effort to control costs and encourage buy in from our funders. The project is currently underway at Netcare hospitals with Medscheme funded patients and will run until the end of the year. We are hoping to use this data to prove that appendectomy can be done laparoscopically and, more importantly, cost-effectively thereby encouraging buy in from the other funders. Watch this space.
Hernia Interest Group
From the same people who brought you the blockbuster inguinal hernia guidelines, we are pleased to announce that the Ventral Hernia Guidelines will be revealed at the upcoming SASES congress. Credit must be given to the members of HIG and the superhuman effort they have put into developing these guidelines. Members are urged to reference this material as the sole aim is promote responsible surgery and best surgical practice with regards to hernia management, thereby optimising patient outcome. The Inguinal Hernia guidelines are available on the link: http://sases.org/hernia-interest-group-hig/surgeons-information/
Other exciting news is that HIG has also secured travelling fellowships pertaining specifically to hernia surgery. These should be advertised early in the New Year. Well done HIG, take a bow.
ERAS
The ERAS project is well underway in a joint project. The private practice of Matley and Partners is well on their way to recruiting patients and accumulating data. Groote Schuur has recently joined the party and will start recruiting in next month. This project will continue until the end of the year.
Well done Ravi Oodit on single-handedly getting this project off the ground. We are hoping to slowly recruit additional institutions and develop a substantial national database on ERAS in the future.
Without having to go on and on, it is clearly evident that your EXCO is hard at work. In order to be truly successful, we require an active membership. I implore to log onto our website, join the webinars and most importantly support our meetings, cos without you, we have no society.
Yours sincerely
Masee Naidoo
President of SASES