INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
REPORT OF INTERNATIONAL FORUM AT THE JOINT EUPSA & BAPS MEETING
Friday 19th June 2009, Graz
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Introduction
The aims of this meeting were to attempt to secure some commonality of purpose and, if possible, process across the major of the world, to provide support for the educational environment, paediatric surgical training, programmes of care, and infrastructure in developing countries. Approximately 50 attendees heard the introductory presentation. This was an account of the activities of the International Affairs Committee of BAPS for the last twelve months and was delivered by Miss Kokila Lakhoo.
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Greenwood Fellow
Mr Choudhary, Nepal, gave a presentation of the challenges facing paediatric surgery in Nepal and described the benefits accrued from his acquisition of the Greenwood Travelling Fellowship which had allowed him to visit the Royal London Hospital, Southampton Hospital, and Alder Hey Hospital. Additionally, he had attended five courses culminating in his attendance at the combined BAPS/EUPSA meeting in Graz. This was deemed a significant success with a highly productive stay for Dr Choudhary.
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Lister Fellows
The intention had been for Dr Ubah and Dr Glover, who were the recent recipients of the Lister Fellowship, to similarly present. Unfortunately, the Austrian authorities had been unable to provide a visiting visa for these fellows who will now have their fellowship forwarded to attend the BAPS meeting in Aberdeen in 2010.
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Baps scholarships
A description of the scholarships that BAPS had supported was also given and the decision accepted that two scholarships will be allocated African trainees and two Asian trainees with the scholars being selected by their parent regional body.
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Workshop
A workshop included presentations by Dr Marilyn Butler, USA, Hesse Affua (PAPSA), Professor Devendra Gupta (FAPSS) and Professor J Grosfeld (WOFAPS).
These presentations were themed by the description of the overseas activities carried out by these paediatric associations and the benefits that could accrue from collaborative enterprise in a variety of functions, notably supporting young surgeons, to visit, to have skills courses provided in developing countries (it was noted that BAPS had provided a paediatric surgical skills course in Accra, Ghana in 2008 and this was to be repeated in Dar es Salaam in 2010, again to coincide with the PAPSA annual meeting).
The important features of the presentations and subsequent discussion identified
· A need to invest in young rather than established surgeons,
· For the established associations to provide advisory and external functions in educational development,
· Provision of assistance at congress attendance and visiting fellowships,
· Development of an agency (Dr Butler is initiating a web based global paediatric surgical network) which could facilitate collaboration across the established associations of the world.
Partnership Organisations
COSECSA was identified as a vehicle through which support could be rolled out to other African countries and the Canadian Association of Paediatric Surgeons was noted as
having significant established links in a variety of countries, as does Cincinatti Children’s Hospital who provided courses in a multi-disciplinary fashion for Bosnia.
While it was noted that twinning was perhaps best done on an individual hospital to hospital basis, and similarly mentoring developed through opportunistic contact, the meeting concluded by identifying the benefits in some form of inter-agency/ inter-institutional approach to educational support in the developing world.
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Conclusion
Scale seems to be a major obstacle to collaboration. However small steps are being made in the right direction by BAPS International affairs committee who remain committed to working with other paediatric associations in pursuit of supporting paediatric surgical education in the developing world.
Prof George Youngson, CBE,
International Affairs Committee
British Association of Paediatric surgeons
July 2009