Advancing paediatric surgery through education and research

Hugh Greenwood and John Gore Neonatal Operative Skills Workshop 2024

Report on the Hugh Greenwood and John Gore Neonatal Operative Skills Workshop at the 3rd Congress of the Malaysian Association of Paediatric Surgery in conjunction with the 16th Congress of the ASEAN Society of Pediatric Surgery and the 45th Annual Congress of the Malaysian Paediatric Association on 26 September 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Tony Lander, Simon Kenny, Niyi Ade-Ajayi and Hetal Patel ran the Neonatal Operative Skills Workshop at the University of Malaysia with the support of Dr Yew-Wei Tan, Dr Dayang Anita Aziz, and Professor Shireen Nah as local faculty.  The models were created from chicken and lamb intestine and prepared the three days before the course by Tony Lander, Hetal Patel, and the fantastic local resident surgeons: Naveena Thiyagaraja, Jaiyajiwan Simon, Aw Mei Yee, N M Syahrin, Norazmah Hamzah, Asyikin Yahya, and Ho Ch’ze Ling.  Our procedures ranged from bowel anastomosis, gastrostomy and stoma formation to repair of duodenal and oesophageal atresia with a few cervical oesophagostomies performed when primary repair of the oesophagus was not technically feasible!

The course was oversubscribed with 36 delegates attending from Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.  Feedback was overwhelmingly positive!  All candidates found Mr Lander’s pre-course material to be helpful and the course instructors to be a friendly team, keen to teach and offer hands-on exposure to models with their own insights on techniques and top tips.  The instructors learnt that the centres in Malaysia are impressive, engaging in clinical research that should be presented at international meetings.  Sarawak and Sabah in Borneo, represent geographically remote areas that face logistical challenges to access to hospital and primary care.  The instructors were also delighted to find that this year’s intake of surgical residents in paediatric surgery were all female!  The sociodemographic factors of training as a paediatric surgeon in Malaysia were previously described by Professor Nah and Dr Anita Aziz in 2023 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2022.10.032).

 

 

 

 

 

The following three days consisted of the annual meeting and a training the trainers course. The joint meeting with the paediatricians in Malaysia meant that we had a wonderful range of talks including a fantastic lecture on paediatric analgesia, a review on the role of ultrasound for bile vomiting in neonates, and the challenges and strategies in the management of NEC in resource limited settings. Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernias and Oesophageal Atresia were discussed in depth and we learnt of one centre seeing 120 neonates with CDH in a 15 year period with a survival to hospital discharge rate of 66.7% that was improving over time due to early involvement of the respiratory team and the Hospital of Kuala Lumpur demonstrated their 340 cases of distal Oesophageal Atresia in a 15 year period with 11.5% of those cases being in children under 1.5kg and an open discussion about the challenges faced in their peri-operative and operative management including staged repair. Tony, Simon and Niyi also co-chaired sessions and gave invited lectures which kept the audience entertained and engaged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony, Simon, Niyi and Hetal would like to thank the Malaysian Association of Paediatric Surgery for their gracious hospitality, their kind words, and their welcoming spirit.

Hetal Patel

Birmingham Children’s Hospital


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