British Elbow and Shoulder Society (BESS) update

Steve Drew, BESS President

BESS has just returned from another successful scientific meeting, held in Aberdeen. This year we were pleased to launch a new style programme that was very well received and we are now looking forward to developing this further when we visit Brighton in 2025. We are grateful to all who made it such a success.

We are pleased to have launched some new initiatives in the last 12 months, including a quarterly Journal Club, open to all and free of charge and our AHP Roadshow, bringing low cost AHP focused educational opportunities to members and nonmembers. The next one will be held in Leicester this November.

To raise our profile at other meetings, I will be taking a cohort of 20 Surgeons, Trainees/Fellows and AHPs to represent BESS at SECEC this September. This cohort will form our Copeland Fellowship, our prestigious award given in honour of our founding member Steve Copeland. We are also looking forward to hosting two joint sessions at the BOA Congress this year, one with BOOS and the other with BSCOS. And later in November we will once more join forces with ORUK to run our ‘Expert to Expert’ day, Controversies in Decision Making for Shoulder and Elbow.

We continue to strengthen our support of shoulder and elbow research trials across the UK and focus on updating our management and treatment guidelines for shoulder and elbow conditions, alongside producing new ones and we are pleased to be sponsoring a place on the BOA Future Leaders Programme.