ISSue 3 /// Friday, October 21, 2011 /// eurospine2011.com
150 years of national unity
Education Program
Milan, October 19-21, 2011
Introducing the new president
A Brief overview of the SSE education plan The Spine Society of Europe (SSE), together with the EuroSpine Foundation, wants to position itself as a major driving force in spine education in Europe. Two main objectives are defined: a) to deliver basic spine education to future spine specialist and b) to deliver continuing education to existing spine specialists. A European Spine Course Diploma and a European Spine Fellowship are established, receiving consistent accreditation from the EACCME (Figure 1). We must work to upgrade the level of knowledge of young spine specialists, and to integrate orthopedic and neurosurgical perspectives, for “a true European spine specialist” formation. At the present time, EuroSpine is sharing this
For continuing education, SSE is organizing one-day master courses based on case discusFive diploma modules are pre- sion for trained Spine Speciapared under standard moda- lists. lities to get consistent quality across Europe, with a future Finally, next year in March, constant review and improve- a new SSE-ESF educational ment process assured by SSE- project will start; the Education Week, where all the five ESF. diploma modules will be deliIn addition, a European Spi- vered with practical workshops ne Fellowship is launched this and cadaver labs. Please find year, with the first 4 grants for the booklet by the ESF in your a 6-months fellowship to be congress bags. spent in some multidisciplinary certified European spine cen- Details of the ambitious plans ters. This fellowship program can be seen on the ESF weboffers the opportunity for site (www.eurospinefoundyoung surgeons who have fi- ation.org). We wait for your nished their board certification participation, either as delegate in orthopedic or neurosurge- or as faculty! ry, to work in an environment where spine surgery is the main Marco Brayda-Bruno surgical activity. project with over 20 national spine societies and EANS.
European Spine Diploma European Spine Course Diploma
European Spine Fellowship Diploma
Continuing education Master Courses
Symposium
Surgical Training
Module 1 Basic Comprehensive Course
Module 2 Degenrative Challenges
Module 3 Trauma, Tumors and Infections
Module 4
Module 2 6 months or Professor Fellowship 12 months
Any symposium Travelling and On site
Module 3
Module 4
Spinal Deformities
Annual SSE meeting
Jean-Charles Le Huec, current Vice-President and upcoming President, was interviewed by Emre Acaroglu.
Dear Dr. Le Huec, welcome to Milano! How do you feel about this coming year? The society is growing and the numbers of responsibilities are increasing. EuroSpine is the biggest spine society with connections to all European national societies. Our role is now recognized at the UEMS in Brussels, which gives us credit to be an official partner for the spine disease treatment, mainly the surgical part. Do you foresee any major challenges? We have two important missions. The first one is the education provided by the SSE. The certificate of attendance that we deliver today could become an official European diploma, because the quality of the courses and the content have been evaluated and validated by an internal audit. The second mission is the registry, an European spine database which allows to create a benchmark of the spine disease treatment in the whole of Europe. Could you briefly outline your vision for the coming years of EuroSpine? The coming year is the year of aging in the EU and the SSE wants to become the first contact of the European Health Council for that. The aging spine is an important thing to manage as it inter-connects with a lot of problems, like low back pain and vertebral osteoporosis. Our registry can be open to non-surgical patients, allowing a larger analysis and helping to promote solutions. Active aging is different from healthy aging and this concept is not always well understood. Maintaining elderly people at home and allowing an active aging must be combined with healthy adapted aging solutions.
What would be the benchmark of your presidency? The society is now well structured with a good status, but we need to be proacRevisions and Complications tive. We will promote our society more using a renovated website, creating patient lines and so on. The executive committee and all the other committees Figure 1: An overview of the European Spine Education Project will have more interactions than in the past. I want to promote SSE as a reference for spine care, becoming the first contact at the European Union EuroSpine in numbers Council, but also providing guidelines (with the help of the European Spine This year‘s congress attracted participants from 81 countries. The most represented countries were Foundation) for all national societies. Connections with the industry must Italy (253), Brazil (177) and China (167). More than 2300 participants attended the congress tobe clear and honest, health technology assessment is necessary and we must gether with over 1300 representatives from 140 companies of the medical industry. The all-time promote innovations with enhanced collaboration. high of 600 submitted abstracts emphasized the overall relevance of the annual EuroSpine meeting. Module 5
Module 5