55th ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE WEST AFRICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS (WACS) AT ABIDJAN, COTE D’IVOIRE
IMMEDIATE PAST- PRESIDENT OF THE WACS
PRESIDENT OF THE PAN-AFRICAN ASSOCIATION OF SURGEONS
E-mail:yangniangate@yahoo.fr
“Homo sum: Humani nihil a me alienum puto”
“I am a man: nothing that is human is foreign to me”
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The 55th annual conference of the West African College of Surgeons was held in Abidjan, the economic capital city of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire from 1st – 7th March 2015. In the past this country had hosted WACS annual conference in 1985, 1995, and in2011; the 2011 WACS conference was scheduled to be located in Abidjan ; unfortunately, it was relocated in Dakar(Senegal) with a local organizing committee chaired by Professor KH Yangni-Angate from Cote d’Ivoire according to the decision of the Finance and General Purposes Committee approved by the Council of the WACS; it was a Conference organized by Cote d’Ivoire on the land of Senegal with the full collaboration of the fellows of the WACS in Senegal led by Professor Serigne Magueye Gueye as Host Chairman. It was impossible to have this 51st conference in Abidjan because of the post-electoral crisis in Cote d’Ivoire that year. This situation had never happened before in the College: it was the first time and by God’s grace this 51st annual Conference so called “the 51st annual conference of the WACS ABIDJAN/DAKAR 2011 “ran well in an unusual period from 1st - 5th July, 2011 instead of the usual February/March schedule of the College.
The 55thannual conference of the WACS was under the patronage of the President of Cote d’Ivoire represented at the opening ceremony by the Minister of Health,Dr R.Goudou Coffie assisted by the Minister of Mines and Energy,Dr JC.Brou The main theme of this conference was: “SURGERY, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT”; sub-themes being: Quality and Safety in Surgical Care; Recent advances in Maternal and Newborn Health; and Surgery and Health Informatics.
824 participants coming from all continents attended; among them were international guests including the General Director of the West African Health Organization (WAHO) as shown in Figure1 as well as several presidents and representatives of international surgical colleges from various parts of the world (Table1).
In prelude to this conference, on February 27th, 2015 there was a meeting between the Executive Director of the International College of Surgeons and the Surgeons of Cote d’Ivoire at the Medical School of the University of Cocody, Abidjan for the establishment of a local chapter of the aforesaid international College.
Furthermore, within the framework of this conference, between 22nd - 28th February 2015, a free surgical outreach campaign took place in two general hospitals: the Methodist Hospital, Dabou, which is a city nearby Abidjan and the General Hospital of Port-Bouët in Abidjan. In all, 178 patients were successfully treated including 75cases of general surgery, 19 cases of paediatric surgery, 24 cases of urology, 48 cases of gynaecology and 12 cases of Otorhinolaryngology (ORL). The surgeries were performed by a team of 46 surgeons and anesthetists based in Cote d’Ivoire, Great Britain and in Canada.
After this free pre-conference surgical activity, the 55th annual Conference began on Sunday March 1st, 2015 and ended on Friday March 6th, 2015.
The objective of this paper is to report the scientific activities, the opening and closing ceremonies and the final communique of the 55th WACS annual conference.
Opening ceremony (Figure 1)
Goodwill messages from sister Colleges were read by their respective presidents. Following these messages, short addresses were given by the Chairman of the local organizing committee (LOC), Professor A.Kokoua, followed by the speeches of the WACS President, Professor K. H. Yangni-Angate and that of the Minister of Health, who officially opened the 55th annual conference of the College.Thereafter three important events took place:
Firstly, the induction of Professor C.Pellegrini, Immediate Past-President of the American College of Surgeons, as Honorary Fellow of the West African College of Surgeons. Shortly after, Professor C. Pellegrini delivered a lecture on Leadership among Surgeons (Figure 3).Secondly, the launching of the Fund raising campaign for the construction of a permanent secretariat building of the WACS at Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria.
Thirdly, a strong WACS delegation comprising the WACS President, WACS Executive board members, WACS Past-Presidents, WACS distinguished Fellows, Presidents of international sister Colleges met with the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire at the State House (Figure 4). On behalf the Government and the President of Cote d’Ivoire, the Prime Minister promised to support financially the construction of the new permanent secretariat building of WACS.
Scientific activities (Figure 5)
There were 37 sessions, 6 workshops, 10 lectures, a round table conference, 5 symposia and 250 communications – the details are as shown in Figure 6.The workshops were on Medical Manuscript Writing, laparoscopic surgery, trauma management, and residency training in Surgery.
Two workshops on laparoscopic surgery were done under the supervision of senior surgeons from Cote d’Ivoire and Tunisia with the support of Ethicon Johnson and Johnson. The first laparoscopic surgery workshop was on intestinal anastomoses and the second was on herniorrhaphy by mini-invasive access.
The lecturers were presented by international experts (Table 2).
The statutory conference of the WACS in memory of late Professor Victor Anomah Ngu was delivered by Professor Lassissi Olawale Akeem on the topic:The role of biomarkers in ear infections and ear ageing adventures of a Surgeon in a laboratory.
The topics of the round table in plastic surgery were:Collaboration in Plastic Surgery training and services” and “Management of lower limb trauma”.
5 symposia were held on blood transfusion, hernias surgical treatment by laparoscopic techniques, trauma of the hands, wound closure and microvascular repair in plastic surgery and training.
Regarding the scientific paper presentations, the countries with greater number (N) of presentations are: Nigeria (N= 118), Cote d’Ivoire (N=66), Benin (N=19), Ghana (N=12) as indicated in Figure7.
Specialties with the most paper presentations were: General Surgery (N=46), Obstetrics and Gynaecology (N=33) and Paediatric Surgery (N=26) as shown in Figure 8. The specialties with the most paper presentations were: Obstetrics and Gynaecology (N=23), General Surgery (N=17), Otorhinolaryngology (N=15) and Paediatric surgery (N=10) as recorded in (Figure 9).
Several competitive paper presentations were made for the Conference Prizes (Appendix1): Ethicon, Jim Nwobodo, and West African Health Organization (WAHO) were competed for but only WAHO Prize was awarded because one of the papers met the strict criteria.
These observations mentioned above led to the observations, recommendation and comments on how to improve on the number of participants and new fellows admitted at annual conferences, the scientific sessions and activities, the conference themes and sub-themes from 1960 to date; and finally, the surgical outreach programmes of the College from 2010 to 2015.
The number of participants grew up from 132 in 1969 to 824 in 2015 with a peak at 1063 in 2014 (Figure 10).
Between 1960 and 2015, the number of scientific sessions increased from 4 in 1960 to 37 in 2015 (Figure 11), with a maximum at 48 in 2011 and a median number of scientific sessions per year estimated at 12 (Figure12). We observe a significant development in the quality of the whole scientific activities including the paper presentations from 1980 to 2015(Figure13).
The number of scientific papers present was of 58 in 1980, 75 in 1981, and 250 in 2015 with the maximum number of scientific papers present at 344 in 2013. This trend in increase in the number and quality of scientific papers presented was found in every specialty (Figures 14-16).
The main themes and sub-themes of the annual conferences from 1960 to 2015 could also be seen in Figures 17-19. They were numerous and diverse; however, we notice that between 1968 and 2015, that some topics recurred more frequently than others such as Emergencies in surgery and disasters management, trauma management, cancer management, advances or innovations in surgery; and surgical complications.
Sub-theme in relation with training and education was generally frequently selected between 1968 and 2015. At the same time, surgical conditions that were often chosen as main theme or sub-theme at the annual conferences and symposia were as equal frequency were trauma management and cancer management. On the contrary, the less frequently used themes were public health in surgery and surgical training/surgical education.
Concerning the Surgical outreach programmes in 2010-2015: Since 2010 an overall surgical procedures of more than 800 were successfully performed by a total number of 89 specialists from West Africa, Great Britain, France and Canada with a highest number of 400 operative cases done during the 53th annual conference in Lome(Togo).
Closing ceremony
The closing ceremony was held on Friday, 6th March 2015 at the Auditorium of le Palais des Congrčs at Sofitel-Hotel Ivoire in presence of the Representative of the Minister of Health.At this ceremony, the new and 38th President of the WACS, Professor A. O. Omigbodun was installed by the outgoing President, Pr KH.Yangni-Angate. Thereafter the Secretary-General and the other principal Officers were installed by Professor A. O .Omigbodun, the new President of the WACS.
In all, 262 New Fellows and 54 Diplomates in Anesthesia were admitted. Between 1960-2015,the number of new fellows at each annual conference has been rising up steadily (Figure 20).
After the citation of Professor A. Gouaze, President-Founder of the International College of the Deans of francophone schools of Medicine, read by Professor K.H. Yangni-Angate, Immediate Past-President of the WACS; in absence of Professor A.Gouaze and on his behalf, Professor A.Kokoua, LOC Chairman, received the WACS Honorary Fellowship Award.
Afterwards, the New President of the College delivered his inaugural speech which highlights were as follows: the construction of the new permanent secretariat building; the development of new technologies of information and communication for WACS training programmes; anglophones and francophones integration in the College amongst others.
The Communique of the Conference is attached as AppendixII Finally, the Representative of the Minister of Health declared the Conference closed
In total, some highlights of the 55th annual conference of the WACS could be summarized as follows:
a. Confirmation of the international nature of the WACS Conferences ;
b. Better attraction of WACS annual conferences due to a better quality of the scientific presentations year after year ;
c. Exponential increase in the number of new fellows admitted by examination during the College annual conferences ;
d. Relevant social impact of the humanitarian surgical outreach programme at the low-income suburbs of the conference venues since 2010.
e. More emphasis on lectures, workshops and educational symposia for specialties and sub-specialties in the scientific program of the annual conferences of WACS.
REFERENCES
- Minutes of the meetings of the Council of the West African College of Surgeons 1960- 2015.
- Books of the scientific program of the annual conferences of the West African College of Surgeons 1981 -2015.
- Knife in Hand - The History of the West African College of the Surgeons (1960 – 2010). Editors AJAYI OO, QUARTEY JKM and ADEBONOJO SA.
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