Thoracic Teaching in Europe – plenty to choose from
Educational opportunities for young thoracic surgeons have never been so good in Europe. Both EACTS and ESTS are running courses in October and November 2007 so there is plenty of choice. These are all at low cost or even no cost to the students and the faculty give their time pro bono. In this BLOG I will summarise what is on offer.
Bergamo: The European School of Cardiothoracic Surgery
http://school.eacts.org/
What we know affectionately as the Bergamo School must surely be one of the finest examples of educational beneficence. It was set up by EACTS around 1989 thanks to the imagination and generosity of Lucio Parenzan. The beautiful Villa Elios, in the grounds of the Gavazzeni Clinic, is the home of the school. Bergamo is a historic city about 40km NE of Milan in the North of Italy. The city is itself a delight to visit. The newer part of the city has a fine boulevard on a grand scale lined with stylish shops, restaurants and pavement cafes. A funicular takes you up through the fortified walls of the hilltop ancient city. Around every corner are architecturally breathtaking buildings, villas, churches and no shortage of trattorias and ristorantes. It is to these that the students and faculty retreat to dine together each evening. The students live economically in the seminario. It seems there is less interest then there used to be amongst Italian teenagers to enter the priesthood and there is spare capacity for budget accommodation for those whose vocation is surgery. The semi-monastic environment reminds us of what we have come to Bergamo for – not just to party!
In this wonderful location EACTS runs week long courses, six in all, three levels of thoracic and three levels of cardiac. The faculty are there with the class all day and the days are filled with high quality teaching. Bergamo has its own low cost airport a short bus ride from Villa Elios, it has good train connections and Milan’s major airports are not far away. The next Thoracic Course is 15th to 19th October 2007 usually a nice time to be in Bergamo. http://school.eacts.org/
ESTS School of Thoracic Surgery
http://www.estsschool.org/
A new initiative this year is the School of Thoracic Surgery in Antalya on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. ESTS have taken a different approach and asked experts in the field to prepare structured lectures within templates provided by the School organisers. As we understand it, the ESTS School faculty of on-site teachers will then deliver these in the class room and lead discussions on them. This will spare busy surgeons the need to travel themselves to Antalya. It remains to be seen how well this will work. Many - maybe most - EACTS thoracic surgeons are also ESTS members. Some will be teaching at Antalya and we have all noted the ESTS approach with great interest. Those who have developed the tradition of Bergamo fear that the loss of direct contact will diminish the impact of teaching. “How could someone else deliver my lecture?” we all ask ourselves. But do we really need to be there ourselves to communicate our own material? Perhaps it is a question of style over content – and content is the more important so that is where the emphasis should rightly lie rather than with the personalities. Time will tell how well this works and we wait for the feedback. It is 14-18 November 2007 and details can be found at http://www.estsschool.org/
EACTS Toolkit Series
http://courses.eacts.org/sections/Thoracic/ThorToolKit/index.html
The Thoracic Committee of EACTS has taken a rather different stance. The Toolkit series is the brain child of Walter Klepetko. The first in what is planned to be an annual event is to be in Prague 1-3 November. Teaching will be very much face to face and as the name suggests it is a course for surgeons in their first couple of years of thoracic surgical training. We have taken the view that at this stage in their careers the students do not need advanced or highly specialised lectures but that the emphasis should be on teaching the basic elements of our craft, and teaching them well – helping the learners to know the toolkit. The aim is that the content should be basic core knowledge and practice. The faculty are chosen primarily for their ability to teach, and we will concentrate on the non controversial and evidence based elements. That is not to say they are not great experts in their fields of interest but it is their ability to communicate that brings them together. The topics for this course are lung cancer staging and pleural disease. The course is free to EACTS trainee members and 50 euros for everyone else. Further information can be found on the EACTS site http://www.eacts.org/ or by go directly to http://courses.eacts.org/sections/Thoracic/ThorToolKit/index.html