SICOT e-Newsletter

Issue No. 37 - October 2011

SICOT - Future Changes

Today SICOT still faces the global challenges of specialty societies, multiple meetings and a global economic recession. SICOT embraced these challenges and modernised its structure to continue performing its role as the international society for orthopaedic and trauma surgeons around the world. The focus on specialisations allows surgeons to attend SICOT meetings to grasp focused up-to-date information in their subspecialty. This has been achieved with focused symposia, instructional courses and invitations of key speakers in these subspecialties. On the economic side, the registration fees for meetings have been lower than in previous years, in addition to the member discount. Membership is also being offered with special rates for Friendship Nations. The high scientific level, subspecialisation and the special rates have increased our new membership in 2011 sevenfold compared to 2008, with 1,360 new members this year, in addition to the increase in attendance at our last meeting in Prague to 3,084 participants.

The online activities of SICOT are in continuous evolvement; and the electronic Newsletters now reach over 17,000 subscribers. A new Editorial Board has been formed for the Newsletter with four active young surgeons joining the team. With plans to rejuvenate the content and look of the Newsletters, we want you to share in the poll, which will be launched online and on Facebook, and tell us what you think and want to see in our Newsletter. SIGNEL (our global network of electronic learning), is posting the latest lectures and symposia from our Prague meeting. It will also include some of the lectures from the Hip Educational Day, which was a successful targeted educational event for trainees.

Our SICOT group on Facebook has now 127 members and this number is rising rapidly. We are using this to communicate with each other, socialise, share research ideas, and ask each other for opinions on difficult and interesting cases. You can also post your latest publications, thus connecting with other members who share the same interest and research planning, and starting the collaboration.

We hope you can join us on our journey into the future, with rapid changes and developments, so we can continue to achieve our aim of advancing Orthopaedics and Traumatology on an international level, and reach our final goal of improving patient care.

Editorial Secretary:
Hatem Said

Editorial Production:
Linda Ridefjord

Editorial Board:
Ahmed Abdel Azeem
Syah Bahari
Kamal Bali
Bassel El-Osta
Anthony Hall  
Maximilian Rudert