Teaching Surgical Judgment: Why Boston 2026 Is Built Differently
It has been a privilege to work alongside the Scientific Program Committee on rebuilding how gynecologic surgeons actually learn. From the outset, the committee asked a simple question for every topic: What’s the best format to teach this? A technique is best shown through surgical videos. A judgment call needs discussion. A genuine controversy needs two experts arguing opposite sides. Some of the most important lessons in surgery aren’t about how to perform an operation — they’re about why one approach beats another, when surgery should be offered or avoided, and how experienced surgeons reason through hard cases.
That question shaped the expansion of three formats in Boston 2026: Surgical Tutorials, Panels, and Debates.
Surgical Tutorials teach technical judgment, not just technique. Using narrated surgical videos and expert analysis, they cover anatomy, strategy, and complication avoidance for procedures including advanced management of extrapelvic and complex endometriosis, radical hysterectomy for parametrial endometriosis nodules, nerve-sparing pelvic dissection, hemostatic technique, and image-guided strategies for ureteral, vascular, and nerve safety in complex pelvic surgery. The series extends into conservative surgery for adenomyosis, evidence-based apical prolapse repair, office intrauterine surgery, and advanced hysteroscopy. These sessions are built for surgeons who want to know not just what experts do, but how they think while doing it.
Panel Discussions take on questions that don’t have a single right answer or a single expert who can give it. One panel, When NOT to Operate, tackles surgical restraint directly — patient selection, timing, risk stratification, and the case for non-operative management in deep endometriosis, chronic pelvic pain, infertility, uterine scar defects, and pregnancy-related conditions. Another examines the disconnect between what surgeons see in the OR and what pathology reports back — and how to respond when pathology comes back negative despite clear clinical disease. A third introduces practical neuropelveology for the MIGS surgeon, linking symptoms, pelvic nerve involvement, and nerve-sparing strategy to functional outcomes. Further panels cover the importance of complete hysteroscopic myomectomy, multidisciplinary decision-making, and patient-centered care.
Debates put respected experts on opposite sides of questions the field hasn’t settled and ask attendees to weigh the evidence themselves. One of the timeliest: Bowel Resection Versus IVF in the Infertile Patient with Rectosigmoid Endometriosis, is a question that forces a real trade-off between anatomy, ovarian reserve, reproductive goals, surgical risk, and time to conception. Others include mini laparotomy versus minimally invasive myomectomy, mesh versus Burch for stress urinary incontinence, and vNOTES versus laparoscopic hysterectomy.
Together, these three formats move Boston 2026 away from passive learning and toward something closer to how surgeons get better: Watching reasoning happen in real time, arguing it out, and testing it against their own patients.
The future of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery won’t be defined only by new techniques. It will be defined by better judgment — knowing when to operate, when to wait, and how to individualize care.
You don’t want to miss this think tank. See you in Boston.
