PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Dear Association Members & Delegates

Welcome to Manchester Central for the 2018 Annual Annual Scientific Meeting of the ALSGBI. The meeting falls in December for the first time, which should guarantee a festive feel as we lead into the holiday season.

The theme of the meeting is training and avoidance of complications and their obvious interdependence. In addition the live operating will showcase the new responsibilities of the Association by incorporating robotic and technology enhanced surgery. Mr Chelliah Selvasekar, as the local organiser, has done a sterling job of bringing together these themes with lots of local talent and some high profile invitees and we can look forward to a stimulating 3 days, including the training day, which for the first time includes access to a surgical robot for the trainees. The training day has once again been organised expertly by Mr Paul Leeder, our Director of Education, and the local team.

We are delighted to be able to welcome Professor Scott Kelley from the Mayo Clinic, who is the Training Programme Director for Robotics, and Professor Saumitra Rawat, who heads up the Surgical & Transplant Unit at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi. We are looking forward to hearing about surgical training and how to reduce complications in two very different demographics and health systems. Meanwhile the parallel ALTS sessions will be focusing on human factors in reducing complications, and boast some great talks including an insight into coping with the Manchester bombing by Consultant General & Colorectal Surgeon, Mr David Jones.

A mini symposium on ’the importance of getting it right’ will take this theme forward with sound guidance from Professor Nader Francis, EAES Director of Education, and some salutary lessons from Professor Peter Sagar, who is a member of the ASGBI Executive and has played an integral role in the medico-legal approach to recent medical manslaughter cases. Of course, in addition there will be the usual potpourri of free papers, posters and video presentations to get involved with and finally, back due to popular demand will be the LapPass training stacks, with LapPass assessments running throughout the meeting.

The live operating day will be transmitted from 2 theatres at the Christie in Manchester and 1 theatre at the Royal Derby Hospital. There will also be a video presentation of ICG fluoroscopy during the day by Mr Manish Chand, from University College London. We will be able to enjoy a variety of robotic cases in various situations. In addition, there will be a live case conducted by a senior trainee set up as a Lapco training case, with subsequent analysis as a ‘Training the Trainer’ mock up. For those of us who are not part of the Lapco training fraternity this will give an insight into this extremely successful training approach.

In keeping with the theme of avoiding complications, on the live operating day, we will be showing some videos of intra-operative adverse events to review and discuss.

The training day has proven to be a great opportunity for hands on training with simulated procedures on models, animal tissue and for the first time access to the Da Vinci robot. As usual the ratio of trainers to trainees was close to 1:1, and this well-organised training day has continued to excel as an educational opportunity.

The social programme includes the President’s drinks reception, where we will be joined by Mr Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester and former Secretary of State for Health, followed by the Conference Dinner at The Midland Hotel with special guest speaker, former cricketer, Mr Geoff Miller, OBE.

This meeting will be a showcase of modern surgical techniques and technologies. I know that Manchester Central will be full of enthusiasts, so please immerse yourselves in the programmes, both scientific and social.

I look forward to seeing you there.

With best wishes

Mr Simon Dexter
ALSGBI President

 

LOCAL ORGANISER’S MESSAGE

Dear Association Members, Faculty & Delegates

We are delighted to welcome the Association of Laparoscopic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ALSGBI) to Manchester for the 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM).

Manchester is a city with a rich industrial heritage and has a proud history in science, art, music and sport. This is the first Annual Scientific Meeting of the ALSGBI after the name change incorporating robotics and technology-enhanced surgery. The North West has been a long-standing supporter of the ALSGBI through the Minimal Access Surgery North West forum (MASNoW). MASNoW was initially started to include a network of laparoscopic colorectal surgeons within Manchester, Mersey and Cheshire with the aim of supporting, networking, and training in minimal access surgery. The group has now expanded to welcome minimal access clinicians from all specialties across the North West and hosts a bi-annual meeting consisting of talks from trainers along with trainee presentations. In addition, MASNoW has recently run its third successful sponsored LapPass training day.

There are many people without whom this meeting would not have been possible: we would particularly like to thank Mr Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester and Mr Farokh Maneksha Engineer, former Lancashire and Indian cricketer for speaking at the Conference Dinner, Mr Roger Spencer, CEO, The Christie, who has been very supportive of all new health care ventures, my colleagues, anaesthetists, theatre staff and importantly our patients who have agreed to be operated on with a live link and of course our excellent sponsors who have helped not only with the ASM, but also with the evolution of minimal access surgery.

Those attending the Christie for the training day will have some fantastic opportunities to enhance their laparoscopic and robotic skills using a combination of animal and synthetic models and also to practise skills for the formal LapPass assessment.

Finally, a special thank you to Mrs Jennifer Treglohan and Mrs Sarah Williams at the ALSGBI and our ALSGBI President, Mr Simon Dexter, who has supported the local team to ensure an excellent Annual Scientific Meeting.

With the pursuit of refining Minimal Access Surgery in mind, I would like to finish with a quote from Sir Alex Ferguson: ‘Drive means a combination of willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat.’

With best wishes

Mr Chelliah Selvasekar
ALSGBI Local Organiser
Consultant Colorectal, Laparoscopic & Robotic Surgeon
The Christie, Manchester, Surgical Team &
Member of the MASNoW Group

WELCOME FROM THE ALTS CHAIR

Dear ALTS Members & Delegates

A very successful conference last year in Wales has fired me with more enthusiasm for this year’s conference. We will be at Manchester Central and the programme is looking very good. Entitled ‘When Complications Strike’, we will be looking at the role of theatre staff in avoiding complications and we have a fantastic speaker, Mr David Jones, who will speak about a real life complication and also about the role of the team in a major crisis. He was part of the surgical team involved in the Manchester bombing and I believe his talk will be both enlightening and interesting. We would also like to look at the role human factors play in failure so plan to present a short session around this and the legal implications for us when there is a Never Event or Serious Incident. Live operating will be on Day 1 of the conference and the second day is packed full of DVD presentations, a session on avoiding complications in robotic surgery and others on the importance of ‘getting it right’.

For the first time, the 2 day conference will be held in December, on Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th, and we have also moved the ALTS programme to the first day in the afternoon. Hopefully, this will enable you to all meet up early in the proceedings and have a chance to share your knowledge and experiences.

Another new introduction this year is the ALTS dinner!  We are aware that not all the ALTS delegates go to the conference dinner and Elemental Healthcare have kindly offered to sponsor a dinner just for us which will follow on from the Presidential drinks reception. We only have limited places so they will be offered on a first come first served basis so book early.

This year we are offering FREE conference registration for 2 days (worth £100 each and 16 CPD points) to all ALTS members, so please encourage your staff to join ALTS today by visiting https://members.alsgbi.org/Join-Now

It would be great to see lots of you again, we had excellent feedback from all those who attended last year. If you want any further information from me or would like a chat, I can be contacted at Debbie.Gooch@colchesterhospital.nhs.uk

With best wishes

Mrs Debbie Gooch
ALTS Chairperson