SAGES Magazine

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GASTROENTEROLOGY REVIEW 2021 | VOLUME 19 | ISSUE 2 | 29 OPINION The future of congresses for health professionals: changing perspectives Sandie Thomson The 19 months of the COVID 19 roller coaster ride is far from over. It’s disruptive force has brought many challenges to health care practitioners, hospital and health policy makers. In terms of medical education the move has been to conduct more and more offerings on the ever evolving online platforms such as ZOOM and Microsoft Teams and GOTOMEETING. These offerings come from individuals, hospitals, higher education institutions, national and international societies, and the medical industry, alone or in combination. In contrast the traditional medical congress, often a main revenue stream; held at a convention centre, has almost come to a standstill. This has had major ramifications not just for the parties mentioned but for Professional Conference Organisers and Convention Centre Managers. These players have been forced to make short and intermediate term plans on how to deal with the situation with the ever present uncertainties of COVID 19. Even more importantly it has led to reflection on the long term outlook and format of Congresses large and small. The Association of Surgeons Presidents Forum an ASSA initiative to keep in touch with members about general matters during COVID had a ZOOM meeting two weeks ago on the “Future of Surgical Congresses” the following viewpoints are those of Professor Martin Smith Head of Surgery at Wits University, Denise Kemp, Eastern Sun Events, Medical Association Conference Organizers and Xander Hamilton and Helen Chamberlain Endoscopy Business Manager and Endoscopy Market Development Manager South Africa & Sub Saharan Africa respectively from Boston Scientific. These viewpoints give interesting insights into the current and future considerations facing organisers and attendees of congresses that are pertinent to all Medical and Surgical Specialities. Martin Smith I have been involved in organising one department based congress and one international congress over the last year and in the planning of a 3rd international congress for 2022. The Department of Surgery at Wits made the decision last year to move at relatively short notice to a fully virtual meeting which was very successful from the educational and the financial perspective though not without its technical hitches. In November the International HepatoPancreatic Biliary Association hosted a fully virtual World Congress which had many more challenges than the departmental meeting. These challenges centred around having to deal with international travel restrictions and 3 major time zones. This meeting was successful but had significant financial implications. The challenge with the 3rd meeting is really at the centre of this discussion tonight. The general intention is to host a face to face meeting in March in New York City next year. I have learnt incredible lessons about hosting congresses over the last year to 18 months. It has been an incredibly steep learning curve. One had to learn to allow a dynamic process to guide decisions, and be flexible and adaptable. In that process it was crucial that one kept the aims of objectives of the society or department at the centre of every decision. This actual became the rock that gave stability and focus to the fast changing environment. Good Professional Congress Organiser support that shared one’s vision and were prepared to go the extra mile to achieve the objective was absolutely key to everything we have done to produce the final product. I must upfront recognise this fact and say thank you to them as well as the industry sponsors. These collaborations have made anything possible. The technology has really improved over the 18months and real innovation allowed the platform to deliver the educational outputs that we all expected. This has not been an easy journey and the number of issues experienced were enormous and they were all driven by the remarkable lack of IT literacy that we as surgeons demonstrated, especially some of us older members. Unmuting, feedback echoes, long discussions without unmuting and just not following instructions were some of the frustrations that both those managing the meeting and those attending had to face. I would like to think that much of this is now second nature. We are all “experts “and can debate the benefit of Microsoft Teams over ZOOM or other innovations with confidence and a little arrogance at times. I believe it is very important that we embrace the technology necessary to host and participate in educational events. I would encourage others to transform their departmental auditorium as I have done into a high technology hybrid lecture theatre environment because we must remember coming from a middle income country it is essential and we share our knowledge with colleagues in low income countries and ensure broader access to the educational program. The role of partners in successful meetings has always been an important part of the recipe for success. Fostering these relationships was part of the process. However, the pandemic brought about financial constraints and everyone needed to ensure they were getting their money’s worth from the investment and how best this could be achieved. I have long believed that the congress financial support model needed to Correspondence Sandie Thomson email: sandie.thomson@uct.ac.za