Personal Hypothesis about the Future of the European Hernia Society

Presidential Activities

Team work hypothesis:

In our opinion a programme has to be planned with the active participation of the Board and all the members through online surveys and congresses. Today more than ever the Presidential activity has to bring tangible and relevant results in order to keep members up to date on news.

Roles, Aims:

To promote periods of update, improvement and comparisons of ideas that bring about the creation of specialised guidelines.

Creation of a commission department dedicated to communication:

An expansion of web pages, web sites, news letters and periodicals all of which are sent out to all members on a regular basis ( three monthly). As well as a plenary congress, it is necessary to give short, monothematic and highly effective courses as part of the daily practise ( emphasise YES or emphasise NO for laparoscopy).

How to ensure that the Board functions:

Working together is a preliminary requirement that can give a president strength in managing a society, allowing him to influence the democratic side of management that has the power to enlighten and deal with institutions.

The Board has to be representative in quantity and quality. It has to be open, and actively involved with all members who will have direct responsibility, defined roles and who will have to carry out objectives. These objectives will be accomplished together with small groups of selected members ( the creation of working commissions) organising topics to be discussed. Other ‘realities’ dedicated to abdominal surgery also have to be included in the Commission, that is to say the Eastern European countries, including Russia, cannot be left out and it is necessary to a participation policy on all Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, to demonstrate characteristics of leadership and involvement.

Improvement-aimed reciprocal collaboration such as this should resemble a feedback cycle, there should be an exchange of experience. I have personally evaluated this last point from every angle, having had institutional roles in MNESA ( Mediterranean Middle Eastern Surgical Association).

To summarise, I think it is necessary in the future to pay particular attention to :

• Judicial matters
• Legal and medical matters
• Congresses-training-permanent education
• Publishing, information technology
• Clinical research
• Quality controls
• Relations with other scientific societies
• Relations with companies

As mentioned above, only the establishment of dedicated Commissions, with a member of the Board at its head and with the participation of a national delegate, will we be able to completely determine the growth of the Association.

JUDICIAL MATTERS

Medicine and law concerning risk management and clinical governance. It is necessary to form a team with the aim of 1) predicting clinical pathways, 2) eliminating clinical risk ( reduce to a minimum the risk of error) and 3) giving detailed analysis of all the steps from the beginning of the patient’s treatment. Once the guidelines are complete ( check-list plus standardisation) they can be used, for the member’s protection, to avoid and justify complications of judicial consequences.

LEGAL AND MEDICAL MATTERS

The objective is to create a task-force aimed at studying and resolving all medical cases that might influence the professional life of members, giving them a feeling of security on the part of the society. An ad hoc commission, presided over by Prof. J.H. Alexandre an internationally known expert, could be an ideal solution for members of the EHS.
From this point of view it would not be wrong to consider international insurance offers, verifying the more favourable options from overseas insurance companies for the members. This would be fundamental, keeping in mind the current risk for a member of the medical staff of being without insurance, which can only be resolved by paying the sometimes very high and excessive costs.

CONGRESSES

Two official annual meetings of the Board should be organised, one of which should be organised with a wider participation, including the presence of all national delegates. The other should report news of problems in the various countries by putting the news into a feedback cycle in the organisation. The nature of these meetings could be either international or national congresses, planned in an ad hoc diary, with the insertion of each member of the Board in the scientific programmes of the congresses concerned.

TRAINING & PERMANENT EDUCATION

It is mandatory to create an official European Hernia Society School of surgery, based on National Chapters. Each National Chapter would be responsible for organising its own school, with the participation of an international teacher from the E.H.S. Board. The cost will be charged on each National Chapter Corporate Alliance. The Italian Chapter ( Prof. Paolo Negro – Rome) has fallen into line with a creation of a National School with a programme that should involve other national branches. A European Board could be created for the purpose of endorsement, this could be organised as mentioned above by the European Health Commission in Brussels to whom the E.H.S. offers its partnership. The various schools could, if categorised at European level, have the use of, or at least share programmes and in this way an international alliance would be born. I believe that up to today the E.H.S has never taken part in any didactic activity except for humanitarian aid in the third world, this could well be a gap to fill. The costs should be met by each national branch.

PUBLISHING & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The journal, that thanks to W. Shumpelik’s tireless and competent management, which is ‘now indexed and included in the Index Medicus and Medline’, has to be enhanced online and we have to succeed in any way possible to have an impact ( to obtain the Impact Factor). A large amount of space is dedicated to advertising (prosthesis, antibiotics, anticoagulants and anything concerning laparoscopic hernia surgery) with positive results on the political economics of the society.
The web site is fundamental to obtain links with other societies and give a stamp of approval during specialisation. It is necessary 1) to + improve the life of the web site thus increasing the branch’s potential for the web delegate, 2) to increase the site’s potentiality to the maximum in the area reserved for members and 3) to inform the presidents of the other societies that a published website exists.

CLINICAL RESEARCH

It is necessary to create registers for the most important chapters ( hernias, laparoscopy)

QUALITY CONTROL

It is necessary that all initiatives, above all those of a scientific, management and programming nature can be allowed an ad hoc Commission.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES

A greater involvement of other Eastern European countries, considering the precarious economic conditions of some of these nations a greater support is also necessary. As mentioned above, the same involvement must be carried out with all Mediterranean countries and we hope that periods of scientific union can make small contributions of distension for countries affected by civil, religious and military conflicts. Also it is important to consider the inclusion of Russia and Portugal.
In this way the E.H.S. could have better relations with international societies such as the A.P.H.S. ( Asian Pacific Hernia Society) the A.H.S. ( American Hernia Society) given the results of the recent contacts with the Australian Hernia Society. Forums must be organised between these Boards to decide the life of the medical journal, the mutual aid of the guests and an intelligent organisation of meetings. Furthermore it is necessary to attempt to have contact with these societies in order to produce a manual of guidelines for the preparation of annual meetings.

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS- RELATIONS WITH COMPANIES

The well-being of a society lies in a positive financial statement, enrolment fees of members will never be able to satisfy this definition and furthermore it is not possible to tax the other associates any more. We believe it is necessary to attempt, at all costs, to re-enter into European finances by actively contacting the European Health Commission. It could be possible for the availability of the E.H.S. to be offered, for specified projects, a programme of internationalisation that is in search of a partner. Finally the E.H.S could offer itself as a partner at European level to validate all scientific projects on the abdominal wall surgery. In addition we could have a role in scientific training to protect the medical education of members. It is fundamental for the life of the society to be able to have a direct relationship with its sponsors. They should pay annual contributions to the Association directly and be assured of the possibility of advertising themselves at congresses.