Get Ready to Honor Our Legacy as We Unite to Elevate Minimally Invasive Gynecology!

The Scientific Program Committee met in-person in mid-Jaunary for an intense planning session for this year’s Congress. (L-R) John Miklos, Kathy Huang, Linda Michels, Michael Sprague, Paraiso, Marcello Ceccaroni, Amanda Nickels Fader, Aarathi Cholkeri-Singh, and Franklin Loffer.

I am excited to give you an introduction to our 2018 Scientific Program for our upcoming 47^th AAGL Annual Global Congress that will take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 11-15, 2018.  The theme of this year’s meeting is Honoring Our Legacy as We Unite to Elevate Minimally Invasive Gynecology.  I chose a diverse and talented group of AAGL members to help me design our program.  We have worked hard to address suggested improvements arising from the 2017 program evaluations with a focus on honoring our founding members and inclusion of many participants, paying attention to gender and cultural diversity, scientific and intellectual contributions, and surgical and academic prowess.

The 28 postgraduate courses include many exciting and innovative programs that are new to AAGL.  Among these are the “Gladiator” suturing course and didactic and cadaveric courses designed by the International School of Surgical Anatomy (ISSA) and the International Society of Neuropelveology (ISON).  Additional postgraduate courses include a timely and comprehensive course on gender reassignment care and surgery, and the debut of a recreational and instructive “Course on a Course”, which will be a didactic course given while we play golf.  The FMIGS Board and Education Committee will have a dedicated MIGS fellowship course preceding the fellowship graduation ceremony.

Finally, a highlight of this year’s Congress will include “120 Years of Radical Hysterectomy: Origin, Evolution, Perspectives and Influences,” with simultaneous live interactive cadaveric dissection presented by Marcello Ceccaroni and our talented AAGL surgeon collaborators.  We will have other general sessions that will focus on the artistic skill of surgery and the challenges of surgical efficiency.  For our full Congress days, we have planned 6 Surgical Tutorial sessions, with one highlighting neovaginal creation; 6 Panel sessions, with one addressing physician burn out and another focused on physician empowerment; and 4 Live Telesurgeries demonstrating genital nerve stimulation, deep infiltrating endometriosis resection, laparoscopic sacral colpoperineopexy, and myomectomy with tissue extraction.  As you can see we have plenty to entice you to come to the AAGL Annual Global Conress this November in Las Vegas, and together we can advance minimally invasive gynecology worldwide and enjoy the social events planned at the meeting as well.