Authors: Stephen W Bickler Kelly McQueen
Publish Date: 2013/04/17
Volume: 37, Issue: 7, Pages: 1460-1461
Abstract
The Alliance for Surgery and Anesthesia Presence ASAP was founded in 2007 as a small working group of surgeons anesthesiologists public health professionals and policy makers interested in a multidisciplinary approach to promoting strengthened infrastructure and expansion of capacity for delivery of surgical services in low income and middle income countries The rapid growth of ASAP from its founding to the 4th Annual Meeting held in San Diego November 9–11 2011 was illustrated by the almost 300 delegates from over 20 countries in attendance Hosted by the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Hospital the threeday meeting included 75 oral presentation and 45 poster sessionsOne of the reasons for this high attendance was that ASAP members had the opportunity to participate in a World Health Organization Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care meeting that preceded the ASAP meeting The San Diego WHOGIEESC meeting was the first held in North America The 5th WHOGIEESC meeting will be in Trinidad in October 14–15 2013The theme of the 4th ASAP meeting was Building Sustainable Surgical Systems This subject was intended to draw attention to the fact that surgical care is not an independent enterprise but depends on a functioning health system The meeting was organized into several sessions The morning of the first day was designed as a surgical summit with presentations on the latest developments in global surgery There were short presentations on the Burden of Surgical Disease Dean Jamison Cost Effectiveness of Surgical Care Rich Gosselin Economic Modeling of Surgical Disease Scott Corlew Surgical Systems David Spiegel Who Should Give Anesthesia Angela Enright Surgical Programs at the World Health Organization Meena Cherian Clinical Officer Surgical Training in Africa Eric Borgstein Nonphysician Surgeons in Mozambique Mario Jacobs Essential Surgical Skills Ronald Lett The Role of Surgical SubSpecialities Emmanuel Ameh Implementing a Contextually Appropriate Surgical Training Program in Botswana George Azzie Consortium of Universities of Global Health Haile Debas Medical Education Partnership Initiative Robert Schooley and Faithbased Initiatives John Tarpley One of the more memorable moments of this session was Ron Lett’s assertion that much of what we have been doing to improve surgical care in low income countries for the past 20 years has not worked and we need to rethink our strategyThe afternoon of the first day of the meeting was devoted to breakout sessions The breakout session has been an important ASAP tradition as these small sessions allow delegates to identify research and work priorities for the coming year The 2011 meeting breakout sessions covered a broad spectrum of topics Metrics Advocacy Anesthesia Crisis Nursing Education and Training Telemedicine Quality Improvement Academic Partnerships Faith Based Initiatives and Disaster ReliefThe meeting also had several outstanding invited guest lectures Emanuel Ameh from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria Nigeria gave the keynote address at the opening dinner His talk focused on the role of international partnerships for strengthening the health workforce in low income and middle income countries At lunch the following day Jeremy Shiffman a health policy expert from the American University in Washington DC discussed the principles underlying the rise and fall in interest in global health issues On the third day of the meeting Catherine deVries from the University of Utah described her vision of the future of global surgeryAs the ASAP meetings have grown so have the side meetings At the 2011 conference there were special sessions on the development and validation survey tools David Chang and on developing a global health career for medical students and other trainees Georges Azzie and Donald Meier The College of Surgeons of East and Central Africa hosted a side meeting to discuss potential collaborations The main social event of the meeting was dinner at the Stephen Birch Aquarium an excellent setting in which to continue the many discussions begun earlier in the conference
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