Since 2014, SSO has welcomed up and coming surgical oncologists from partner societies to attend the Annual Cancer Symposium and visit U.S. institutions as part of the International Career Development Exchange (ICDE) program. The initial program had a total of three participants from Japan, India and Mexico. This year, seven young surgical oncology leaders arrived in Chicago from partner societies in Brazil, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, Mexico and South Korea. After the Annual Cancer Symposium, ICDE participants were each hosted by two U.S. institutions around the country.
This year’s participants were (as seen in photo): Young Suk Park, MD, Korean Society of Surgical Oncology; Maheswaran Satishkumar, MBBS, MS, MCH, Indian Society of Surgical Oncology; Nereida Esparza-Arias, MD, Sociedad Mexicana de Oncologia; Michael Kelly, BA, MB, BCh, BAO, MRCSI, MCh, European Society of Surgical Oncology; Marcus Kodama Pertille Ramos, MD, MS, Brazilian Society of Surgical Oncology and Francis Zih, MD, MSc, Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology. Not pictured is Hideya Kashihara, MD, PhD, Japanese Society of Gastroenterological Surgery.
Nereida Esparza-Arias, MD comments on her experience, “SSO 2018 was an impressive meeting. I enjoyed the Great Debates and seeing how experts can have controversial views, but with comparable results. The Poster Grand Rounds and the various Plenary sessions demonstrated topics of common interest across disease sites. During my visit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, I learned about the implementation of new technologies to optimize time and resources. Overall this experience at the Annual Cancer Symposium and during visits at the cancer centers, has reinforced that the treatment of patients is not about a single area, but the science, technological and administrative services coming together for better results.”