Saturday, 04 April 2020
Major Sponsor of the Royal Belgian Surgical Society : 
Major Sponsor of the Royal Belgian Surgical Society :
Dear all,
COVID-19 holds our whole world in a stranglehold.
Unlike other countries we were lucky to have the opportunity to brace before things got out of hand.
We still don’t know how hard the virus is going to hit us but at least most of our hospitals did their best to be prepared for the attack..
We are all set. Or not. Only time will tell.
With this post, we want to reach out to you and offer you some background information as well as practical tips from within the surgical community. Check this page regularly as it will be updated along with expanding global knowledge and experiences.
Belgium
France
Spain
As you might know, Spain is a number of days ahead of us and in several areas, the situation is already out of control.
The Spanish association of coloproctology has worked hard to produce - in only a couple of weeks - guidelines for surgery on COVID-19 positive patients.
Maybe these guidelines can help to control the damage in your hospital.
The text is in Spanish of course but for those of us who don’t speak Spanish Google translate works well nowadays.
Hope this can help.
Graciès to our Spanish colleagues for their tremendous effort.
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_1.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_2.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_3.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_4.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_5.pdf
https://aecp-es.org/images/site/covid/DOCUMENTO_6.pdf
EAES
The website of the EAES has also issued statements on COVID-19 on their website https://eaes.eu/category/covid-19-statements/.
SAGES
RESOURCES FOR SMOKE & GAS EVACUATION DURING OPEN, LAPAROSCOPIC, AND ENDOSCOPIC PROCEDURES
SAGES AND EAES RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING SURGICAL RESPONSE TO COVID-19 CRISIS
ISDE
Management of Upper-GI Endoscopy and Surgery in COVID-19 Outbreak
CTS.net
CTS.net published an overview page on cardiothoracic surgery in COVID-19. Check the start page here.
ERS
The European Respiratory Society launches a blog line on COVID-19, with amongs others a document on managing and caring for patients with COVID-19, which was prepared by a team of healthcare professionals from the Italian Respiratory Society and Italian Thoracic Society; this could be usefull for us surgeons when we could be deployed to COVID-19 units. Check also the main ERS blog on COVID-19 here.
PanSurg
The group of Imperial College London has geard up as well on a new platform www.pansurg.org and organises since the past couple of days testimonials of surgeons and health care workers who are currently battling for their patients, and are willing to share their experience of only the last two weeks in webinars. Information is offered through a forum and webinars with surgeons working in the front line, e.g. with the first two webinars with colleagues from Italy.
American College of Surgeons
ACS has also made a dedicated sub-website, with an overview of information per (surgical) topic - albeit some of these are oriented towards the Northern American surgical practice: https://www.facs.org/covid-19
Annals of surgery:
Minimally invasive surgery and the novel coronavirus outbreak: lessons learned in China and Italy
AIS (Advances In Surgery channel)
27-03-2020, 13.00: special broadcast onColorectal management during the current COVID-19 pandemic with recommendations by experts from China and Italy. Click here for program and link.
Be careful and try to stay healthy,
Charles de Gheldere M.D. FEBS.Gen.surg.
President RBSS
BSW 2020 & COVID-19
Update 12.03.2020, 11h55
Given the developments of the latest 24h in regards to COVID-19 crisis and in line with the recommendations of the government, the RBSS Board has decided to postpone the 2020 Belgian Surgical Week until the autumn of 2020.
The event will thus not take place from 7-9/5/20. The way the situation unfolds in Belgium as in the rest of the world give us no other choice.
The RBSS secretariat will inform all stakeholders of this decision.
More details in regards to the submitted scientific work will follow once we start planning again this event for our society.
Should you have any important matters you intended to submit to the board, kindly send them by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
As already communicated earlier, continue to follow our website and social media accounts to stay updated.
Read more ...Following the success and the scope of the activities set up by the RBSS since 2018, the board decided to erect the Educational Committee.
Since 2018 and continued through 2019, RBSS organised the VATS tour, the Colorectal tour, two RBSS-meets-BAST-sessions. Moreover, as our society was asked to patronise the initiation and organisation of the Belgian 'edition' of the ATLS as the national surgical scientific organisation, it was decided to entrust these activities to an educational commitee created within the RBSS.
Read more ...
Dear Colleague,
Beste Collega,
Cher Confrère,
The Royal Belgian Society of Surgery is proud to announce the organization of ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support) courses in Belgium, patronized by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma (COT) .
With the organisation of these courses, the RBSS would like to provide easy access to the ATLS program for all Belgian doctors and to set international standards for the trauma care in our country.
Read more ...