In collaboration with the RCSEd, the West Midlands Surgical Society (WMSS) has reached another milestone! We have held another successful conference on the 27 October 2023 at County Hospital, Stafford. This was the second event of the year following the conference held on the 26 May 2023, marking the society’s 72nd anniversary as a regional surgical society.
The event was a successful one, offering 6 CPD points attracting high-quality peer reviewed abstracts, both oral and poster, that were presented with topics covering multiple surgical specialities. We also had 2 keynote speakers who are highly reputable for their work in the surgical field: Professor Shervanthi Homer-Vanniasinkam – a consultant vascular surgeon and professor in Universities of Leeds, Warwick and UCL who delivered a talk on “Crafting an academic career: a clinician-scientist perspective”, and Mr Senthurun Mylvaganam – a consultant oncoplastic breast surgeon and national recruitment lead for Core Surgical Trainees who discussed the appraisal, challenges, and the core surgery framework. The event had a remarkably high attendance number, with a mixed audience ranging from students to consultants, and the feedback was excellent.
The event highlight was the collaboration with the RCSEd Foundation Trainee Surgical Society FTSS of West–Midlands (FTSS-WM) team who ran their first national essay competition on “How will current innovative technologies influence future surgical training?” The preliminary round was a written 1500 word essay anonymised and scored by RSAs and the FTSS team. The top three highest scoring essays from across the UK (Drs. Radhika Acharya, Chirag Rao and Dhanwanth Chigurupati) were selected for oral presentation at the WMSS meeting.
The event also saw our President Mr Brian Gwynn finishing his tenure and welcoming the incoming President Mr Brian Isgar, both of whom are proud fellows of the RCSEd.
We would also like to express our gratitude to the College and their admin team, with a special thanks to Ms Gemma Spence for facilitating the event and arranging the prizes for high abstract/essay scorers. It was a very eventful day with lots of special moments. Our next meeting will take place in May of 2024 at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton. We invite all training and non-training groups, including medical students, to submit abstracts and/or to attend this invaluable learning opportunity.
Dr. Tsz Ki Ko and Dr. Caitlin Elwe; Foundation training representatives on behalf of WMSS organising team ( Dr O Mostafa, Mr AB Crichton, Ms S Jafferbhoy, Ms Wood, Ms Lightwood)
Ms. Rebecca Lefroy and Dr. Jinpo Xiang, FTSS-WM mentors
Mr. Sriram Rajagopalan, Secretary for WMSS Lead for FTSS WM and RSA
