UEMS Section of Surgery & European Board of Surgery
Who we are
Presentation
All the activities and initiatives carried out by the UEMS Section of Surgery have a single objective: to help each and every European surgeon in his/her professional career, by providing through the UEMS, in collaboration with its Surgical Society, the tools for professional advancement.
The ultimate aim is assuring standards in the interest of patient safety and wellbeing.
In this purpose, the Section of Surgery gathers 12 different surgical specialties organised either in Divisions, Multidisciplinary Joint Committee (MJC), or Working groups within the Surgery Section:
- Breast surgery
- Surgical oncology
- Endocrine surgery
- Emergency surgery
- General surgery
- HPB surgery
- Coloproctology
- Upper gastro-intestinal surgery (MJC in collaboration with the UEMS Section of Thoracic Surgery)
- Trauma surgery
- Abdominal wall surgery
- Minimally invasive surgery
- Transplantation which has 4 European Boards focused on different components of transplantation:
Aside from these specialties’ groups, the Surgery Section has 3 Focus Groups with the aim to work together among the specialties on key topics for the Executive Committee of the UEMS Surgery Section:
– Continuing Medical Education,
– Global surgery,
– Attractivity of surgery (for surgeons in training and female surgeons).
The main activities of the UEMS Section of Surgery and of the European Board of Surgery
are summarised under 4 headings
Organisation
Since 1996, the members of the Section of Surgery and of the European Board of Surgery have recognised the drive towards specialisation in surgery but see the need to maintain an excellent common trunk of training.
The importance of the common trunk
The members of the Surgery Section and of the European Board of Surgery have recognised that there is an inevitable thirst towards specialisation, but there is concern about the on-call rotas and that the patients shall end up in the right hands by day and by night.
The Section of Surgery and European Board of Surgery are both opposed to fragmentation of surgery. Indeed, the surgeons must relate together as a group to be effective. We recognize that to splinter will be to our loss.
The UEMS Section of Surgery and European Board of Surgery are united in their view that a very adequate common trunk of training is crucial They also both recognise that the length of the common trunk should not be the same for every Division of the Section.
A structure as a grapefruit
From this vision, a federal structure within the Section of Surgery has emerged which we can compare to a grapefruit:
– the skin of the grapefruit represents the UEMS Section of Surgery and the European Board of Surgery which unifies the common trunk and the specialties within the UEMS Section of Surgery.
– the rather large pithy centre represents the common trunk of training, which unites all surgeons. Having undertaken a common trunk of training, surgeons often concentrate on a specialty of surgery for research purposes followed by 2 years of training programme in their chosen specialty.
This is the system for vascular surgery, coloproctology, trauma, transplantation, thoracic surgery and so on.
– the segments of the grapefruit represent the Divisions of the Section of Surgery and their Boards.
The specialties are thus separated by a thin “partition” but linked by the common trunk of training and united within the “skin” of the grapefruit which represents surgery as a whole.
UEMS Surgery Section and European Board of Surgery members
The Section has a President, a Vice President, a Treasurer, and a Secretary. The Surgery Section takes great care to work hand in hand with the European Board of Surgery, which has a separate President.
The UEMS Section of Surgery and European Board of Surgery meet together to indicate the parallel track of these organisations.
Members of the Section and of the European Board are elected or nominated by the competent body in each country – usually the same two representatives sit on the Section of Surgery and the European Board.
Within the European Board of Surgery (EBS), there are three Focus Groups with the following focused topics:
– European Training Requirements
– Assessments/Exams, and
– Recognition of Qualifications
Within the UEMS Section of Surgery, some Divisions have established cooperation with the respective European Surgical Societies for collaboration in training courses and qualifying exams:
The UEMS Divisions of Breast Surgery and of Surgical Oncology collaborates with the European Society of Surgical Oncology (ESSO).
The UEMS Working group of Abdominal Wall Surgery collaborates with the European Hernia Society.