APSA 2012 Travel Fellowship

Congratulations to Dr. Omolara Williams

Recipient of the 2012 Travel Fellowship


APSA and APSAF are excited to announce that Omolara Williams, MD, is the recipient

of the first-ever Travel Fellowship. Williams is a lecturer and consultant

pediatric surgeon in Lagos State University College of Medicine and Lagos State

University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria, where she is pioneering the

development and establishment of pediatric laparoscopy and is dedicated to

continually improving services through training, research and evidence-based

practices in spite of limited resources.
Congratulations!

WOFAPS 2013

Invitation

Dear Colleagues,

The German Society of Pediatric Surgery has been appointed to host the 4th World Congress of the World Federation of Associations of Pediatric Surgeons. The Congress will take place in Berlin from October 13th – 16th, 2013. For our society this is a great honor and we have the pleasure to invite you to Berlin on this occasion.

The Congress motto is “Children‘s Surgery with Competence & Heart”, and many activities will be executed to meet both pretensions.

Clinical and scientific topics will include:



• Burns
• Diagnostic
• Endoscopy and Minimal Invasive Surgery (including SILS, robotics)
• Hepato-biliary pancreatic surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Oncology
• Short bowel syndrome
• Surgery of newborn and congenital malformations
• Thoracic surgery (including CDH)
• Traumatology
• Urology
• Vascular anomalies and malformations


Berlin is the trend-setting city and capital of Germany and has experienced tremendous changes during recent years. Besides an inspiring scientific program, further exceptional highlights can be enjoyed when colleagues gather from all over the world. Berlin makes your heart beat and guarantees a lot of fun.

Looking forward to welcoming you in 2013!

Yours,



Prof. Dr. Richard Azizkhan
President WOFAPS

Prof. Dr. Jörg Fuchs
President of the German Society of Pediatric Surgery

Biomed Central Open Access Africa Conference

Open Access Africa 2012

4 – 5 November 2012, Cape Town, South Africa
http://www.biomedcentral.com/developingcountries/events/openaccessafrica

BioMed Central is hosting the third annual Open Access Africa conference at the University of Cape Town. The conference will bring together researchers, librarians, university administrators, funders and other decision-makers to discuss the benefits of open access to research in an African context


Less than three weeks to go until the 3rd annual Open Access Africa conference hosted by BioMed Central.


This conference is free to attend.

To register your interest today, please visit the Open Access Africa events page

The FAST Exam in Children

FAST is a helpful adjunct to the initial evaluation of adult trauma patients. Unfortunately, due to small numbers the usefulness is not as clear in children. In part, this is due to the fact that many children (particularly small children < 10 years old) have a small amount of fluid in the abdomen at baseline. This makes interpreting a FAST exam after trauma more difficult. Despite this, use of FAST in children is widespread. A survey of 124 US trauma hospitals in 2007 showed an interesting pattern of ultrasound usage. In adult-only institutions 96% use FAST, and at hospitals that see both adults and kids, 85% use it. Most of these centers that use FAST have no lower age limit, and the physician most commonly performing the exam was a surgeon. However, only 15% of children’s hospitals do FAST exams, and they were usually done by nonsurgeons! The reasons for this are not clear. It appears that the pediatric surgeons have not embraced this technology as much as their adult counterparts. What about that confusing bit of fluid found in kids? Several groups have looked at this (retrospectively). Fluid in the pelvis alone appears to be okay, but fluid anywhere else is a good predictor of solid organ injury. Fluid seen outside the pelvis had a 90% sensitivity and 97% specificity for injury, and positive and negative predictive values were 87% and 97% respectively. Bottom line: FAST exam is useful in pediatric victims of blunt abdominal trauma. Fluid in the pelvis alone is normal in most children, but fluid seen anywhere else indicates a high probability of solid organ injury. Michael McGonigal MD @ http://onsurg.com/news/trauma-icu/the-fast-exam-in-children