VU Professor Organises Surgery Training Sessions at King’s College London

Debates and Dilemmas in Colorectal Surgery, an international training for doctors who want to learn more about colorectal surgery, took place at King’s College London at the end of 2019. One of the main initiators and directors of the training event is Vilnius University (VU) abdominal surgeon Dr Narimantas Evaldas Samalavičius and his colleague Dr Joseph Nunoo-Mensah.

This event is held annually for seven years in a row now and attracts scientists from all over the world: Europe (the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, German, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Lithuania), Asia (Japan, Singapore, China, Saudi Arabia, Thailand), and North America (the USA).

During these trainings, discussions and various activities about new trends provides an international team sharing experiences about surgical innovations. Dr N. E. Samalavičius and Dr J. Nunoo-Mensah decided to organise the training sessions in London after he hosted an international event in Vilnius.

“We were active members of the International University of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, and we decided to share our international knowledge and experience with other surgeons. Since London has such a strong medical tradition, organising something new there was a challenge. On the other hand, we had a huge amount of support from King’s College London, which is where Dr Nunoo-Mensah works,” Dr N. E. Samalavičius said.

When an excellent space for training was secured, scientists had no doubt that their colleagues from all around the world will agree to contribute to this event. In addition, Dr N. E.Samalavičius and Dr J. Nunoo-Mensah chose engaging topics and different forms of training to make these courses more useful and interesting in both practical and theoretical aspects.

“Our participants’ favourite form is debate, when well-known lecturers present and discuss two completely different ways to solve a problem. Our event has been popular and attracted recognition since we first organised it in 2013, and we hope to achieve even more in the future. It’s important to add that this event is the result of a lot of hard work, and we’ve already begun planning for our meeting in 2020,” Prof Samalavičius said.

The presentation of the robotic surgery experience in Lithuania attracted a lot of interest this year. Klaipeda University Hospital was the first to start robotic surgery in Lithuania and the Baltic States only a year ago. Now, they have already completed a thousand operations. Even though the classical da Vinci robotic system has been on the market for twenty years, Lithuanian doctors use the Senhance robotic system, which proves that Lithuania can not only be innovative in robotic surgery but also answer many questions about the use of this robotic system for colon surgery.