Education Committee Update
Burt Yaszay, MD
Education Committee Chair
The Education Committee is charged with providing the education program for the 54th Annual Meeting in Montréal including the Pre-Meeting Course, Half-Day Courses and Lunchtime Symposia. We are excited by the program as it has topics that are both innovative and fundamental and should appeal to all members. We look forward to seeing you there!
The first big education program of the meeting will be the Pre-Meeting Course entitled: “Improving Patient Care through Surgeon Performance”. Topics to be discussed will help our members better understand the measures of and how to improve surgeon performance. The course will end with multiple case panels to deal with surgeon performance in specific complex case examples. There will be two concurrent Half-Day Courses; one pediatric, “Growth and the Development of Scoliosis,” and one adult, “Current Concepts in Adult Spinal Deformity: Debate.” New this year, abstracts supplied by the program committee and specific to either pediatric or adult content will be included in each Half-Day Course. The three Lunchtime Symposia will be exclusively on Wednesday, September 18, and include: “Practical Biomechanics for Spinal Deformity Surgeons,” “Achieving the Desired Sagittal Alignment Intra-Operatively,” and “Navigation Options for Spinal Surgeons: State of the Art 2019.”
The Education Committee also selected six webinars which will be presented throughout the year. They include “Spinal Global Outreach: 101 to Advanced Degree,” “Spinal Tumors: A Case Based Discussion,” “The Value of Predictive Analytics in Adult Spine Surgery,” “Radiation Reduction Strategies and Cutting-Edge Imaging Technologies for Spinal Deformity,” “Neuromuscular Scoliosis: Transition from Pediatric to Adult Care,” and “Spinal Tethering: Past, Present, and Future.” If you are unable to make a specific webinar...no worries…as these will be archived and accessible for future use. Webinars are free to watch with the ability to claim CME for $25 USD.
The committee received 29 proposals this year from which to develop the 2019 Educational Program. Through previous course reviews and a strategy called “backward planning,” we identified the knowledge gaps of our members. This information guided the committee in creating a program that best fulfilled our membership’s needs.
In addition, the Education Committee interfaces with many other SRS committees including the Program, Worldwide Course, Website, and CME Committees to maintain our society’s legacy of educational excellence. Beyond our society, the Education Committee also works with other organizations such as AAOS, AANS-CNS Joint Spine Section, AOSpine, Eurospine, FOSA and POSNA to co-brand education programs.
This 2019 Education Program could not have been done without the members of the committee. I would like to thank each member for the work that has been done and the future work to be done. I would also like to thank the Education Council Chair, John Dimar and Chair-elect, Suken Shah, as well as our president, Peter Newton, for their continued guidance with the program.
A special thanks also needs to be given to Courtney Kissinger, Senior Education Manager. She has been invaluable in her guidance, organization and logistical support of our committee.
Chair: Burt Yaszay Committee: Suken A. Shah, Past Chair; Firoz Miyanji, Program; Charles H. Crawford III; Paul T. Rubery; Benny T. Dahl, WWC; Keith R. Bachmann (C); Edmund Choi (C); Alexandre F. Cristante (C); Sabrina Donzelli (C); Calvin C. Kuo (C); David E. Lebel (C); Gabriel KP Liu (C); Kristopher M. Lundine (C); Addisu Mesfin (C); Joshua Murphy (C); Tushar N. Rathod (C); Rolf B. Riise (C); YingSong Wang (C); Samuel K. Cho, CME; Marco Brayda-Bruno; Michael D. Daubs; Baron Lonner, Chair Elect; Ahmet Alanay; Charles E. Johnston; Stephen W. Hwang; Yong Qiu; Amer F. Samdani