Surgical Week Subsite 2017

15-01-2017: opening abstract submission

20-01-2017: opening online registration

28-02-2017: closure abstract submission

14-03-2017: final review by the scientific committee

01-04-2017: confirmation emails to authors

15-04-2017: latest early bird rate

18~20-05-2017: 18^th Belgian Surgical Week

Registration fee includes:

• Participation in the congress
• The conference bag containing the programme, certificats and congress documents
• Use of the conference app
• Lunches and coffee as indicated in the programme

NOT included in the conference fee:

• entrance to the Surgical Night on Thursday (seperate registration)
• workshop on Saturday. Free, but mandatory to register, with a no-show-fee of EUR 50,-. Registration through the confrerence website.

 Join us for the 18th Belgian Surgical Week 2017 in Ostend!

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of the Board of the RBSS I would like to invite you to join us for the 18th Belgian Surgical Week which will take place in the Thermae Palace Hotel in Ostend on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th May 2017. This year’s scientific theme is “Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS)”.

ERAS is a multi-modal peri-operative care pathway designed to achieve enhanced recovery for patients undergoing surgery. It represents a (para)medic shift in considering and re-thinking current peri-operative care. Multidisciplinary work between surgeons, anaesthesiologists, nurses, social workers and physiotherapists,... are crucial in order to achieve this goal. More and more ERAS finds its entrance in our surgical daily practice, sometimes also pushing limits and taking down longstanding dogmatic walls in our institutions.

The meeting will be centred around plenary sessions, free oral presentation sessions and sessions organized by the different affiliated surgical societies and sections of the RBSS. During the presidential symposium on Thursday, professor Kehlet (Denmark), considered to be the founding father of ERAS, will explain us the principles of ERAS and why we should implement it. Professor Housmans (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA) will focus on the role of anesthesia in ERAS. The plenary session on Friday will focus on ERAS and on the evolution of surgical training in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium. Mr. Preston (Guildford, UK) will highlight the role of ERAS in oesophageal surgery and professor Cassivi (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA) will focus on the role of communication with patients and its link with ERAS.

Besides these sessions, the different surgical societies and sections of the RBSS will also organise their scientific sessions.

To complete the scientific programme, we foresee dedicated time for free oral paper/case report and free video sessions and of course the topics of these sessions are not limited to the theme of the congress. We thus encourage you to submit abstracts via our dedicated conference website www.belgiansurgicalweek.be , where the instructions for authors can be found. Abstract submission is open between 15th January 2017 till 28th February 2017 23:59:59 CET. Trainees and young surgeons (up to 35 years of age) can submit their work for the young investigator award. The two best clinical and the two best experimental papers will be presented in the plenary session on Thursday. They will compete for a prize for the best clinical and a prize for the best experimental paper.

On Thursday afternoon, the BAST will also organize an interactive session (BAST-trainer-trainee session) that will focus on clinical case discussion between trainers and trainees. This session will be supported by an interactive voting system.

Friday at noon, we foresee a session for the best posters and prize for the best poster presentation will be given.

For the trainees a BAST-BGES hands-on dry lab training course will be organised on Saturday morning.

Apart from the scientific track, the Belgian Surgical Week is also a place to socialize and to meet colleagues. This can be extremely relevant for surgical trainees in the light of their further career. Therefore also social events will be organised during the conference. On Thursday, the presidential reception will close the scientific sessions which will be followed on Thursday evening by the Surgical Night, with good food, good music and dance. During this evening, the two laureates of the Young Investigator Award will be announced. The BAST will also nominate its Silver Scalpel scalpel to the best trainer.
The program and the invited speakers promise to guarantee a highly scientific content. Please visit the conference website for the latest updates of the scientific program and other relevant conference information at www.belgiansurgicalweek.be.

In name of the board of RBSS, I am looking forward to meeting you in Ostend!

Prof. dr. Paul De Leyn
President RBSS