September 17, 2008
Chicago, Illinois, USA
The biggest thing “This Week in Chicago” was the SLS Annual Meeting and Endo Expo!
Opening the conference were the Blues Brothers who set the tone for an enjoyable evening with jokes and songs from days gone by that everyone could sing-along with. Dr. Paul Wetter announced several significant SLS achievements over the past year to the physicians from Korea, Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Portugal, Japan, France, Singapore, China, Venezuela, India, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Iran, Mexico, Canada, and other countries, and almost every state in the Union who attended the conference. Kudos are in order for the following:
· JSLS, Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons ranked in the top 100 downloads on the Ingenta Web site 6 times over the past year.
· The JSLS table of contents ranked 9 of 10,000 downloads on the Ingenta site.
· Prevention and Management of Laparoendoscopic Surgical Complications, 1st edition, is now available free online in Spanish. This translation is the result of the joint effort of SLS and ALACE (la Asociación Latinoamericana de Cirugía Endoscópica) and the work of Dr. Gustavo Stingel of SLS and Dr. Roberto Gallardo, President of ALACE. Prevention and Management has now been translated into Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
· The History of Endoscopy by Dr. Camran Nezhat was recently published at http://laparoscopy.blogs.com/endoscopyhistory/. This is an open access publication, which is envisioned to operate like Wikipedia, with minimally invasive surgeons from around the world submitting information, photos, and their experiences for review and addition to the book. The book is available through RSS feed for downloading to your cell phone or other device. Dr. Nezhat had a fellowship to research and write this book, which took him 2 years.
· Laparoscopy Today has been available online for 2 years. The latest issue is the first “green” issue, which can be downloaded as a PDF.
Following these announcements awards for the best scientific papers, videos, and poster presentations were handed out, and Dr. William E. Kelley, Jr., SLS President, gave his address. The Honorary Chairs for this year’s conference were Makote Hashizume, MD, PhD, of Japan who shared his expertise on image-guided minimally invasive robot-assisted surgery, and Errico Zupi, MD, of Italy who discussed NOTES. Rounding out the evening was a special talk by James “Butch” Rosser, Jr., MD, of “Top Gun” fame who shared his inspiring thoughts about virtual learning. With that, conference attendees followed the Blues Brothers into the welcome reception and opening of the exhibit hall, which marked the official opening of the conference.
by Ann Conti Morcos, MA, ELS
