Webinar 21/03/2024 - 2nd CHANCE

The 2nd CHANCE Association in collaboration with the Global Surgery Foundation and UNITAR will host a special online event entitled:

Why reconstructive surgery belongs to the humanitarian response in post-conflict and disaster emergencies.

The necessity for an internationally recognized and coordinated response to deploy reconstructive surgery and establish robust health systems following conflicts and disasters is urgent.

Background

According to open sources, there were 50,783 deaths, 297 missing and 107,204 injured across 11 of the 17 affected provinces of Turkey due to the earthquake in February 2023.

On 18 August 2023, The New York Times wrote that “the total number of Ukrainian and Russian troops killed or wounded since the war in Ukraine began 18 months ago is nearing 500,000, U.S. officials said”.

We are accustomed to seeing these statistics in the media reports of disasters. However, what is commonly neglected in these stories is the tremendous need for surgical care of the wounded and disabled long after the disaster is over.

The above examples are only examples where reconstructive surgery should play a vital role in restoring the physical, psychological, and social well-being of affected individuals in the aftermath of a humanitarian emergency, such as natural disasters, conflict situations, or mass casualty incidents.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html2

https://www.paho.org/en/campaigns/7th-global-road-safety-week-2023

Here are some key reasons that support the rational for reconstructive surgery in such situations:

• Restoring Functionality

• Addressing Physical Disabilities

• Psychological Rehabilitation

• Social Reintegration

• Long-term Cost-effectiveness

• Humanitarian Principles

• Health System and Sustainability

Following more than 10 years of success in providing reconstructive surgery training in low-income, post-disaster and post-conflict countries, the 2nd Chance Association in collaboration with The Global Surgery Foundation (The GSF) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) invites you to a roundtable discussion on why reconstructive surgery to the humanitarian response in post-conflict and disaster emergencies.

Programme

Guiding questions

• Challenges: What Are the Unique Challenges of Reconstructive Surgery in Post-Emergency Settings?

• Impact: How Can Reconstructive Surgery Contribute to Post-Emergency Recovery and Rehabilitation?

• Needs: What Are the Key Considerations for Delivering Effective Reconstructive Surgery in Post-emergency Situations?

• Strengthening health systems: How Can these Approaches be Strategically Leveraged to promote the development of strong Surgical Care Systems and the overall Healthcare System in the Affected Regions?

Event objectives

1. Share experiences and lessons learned by creating a space for discussion and exchange of experiences among experts in reconstructive surgery and health systems.

2. Raise awareness of the challenges to provide reconstructive surgery care in a timely manner, and the challenges and opportunity to align interventions with a view towards building strong health systems.

3. Promote the need to reinforce and train local healthcare providers and to build a network of professionals ready to support in post-emergency situations.

4. To foster collaboration and networking: This meeting provides a unique opportunity to meet and collaborate with renowned experts in the field of reconstructive surgery. We strongly encourage participants to connect, share contacts, and explore opportunities for future collaboration to advance our common domain.

Learning objectives

After the event, participants will be able to:
• Understand the current challenges and opportunities related to reconstructive surgical care.
• Recognise the link between providing reconstructive surgery post emergencies and strengthening the health system.
• Identify the main challenges for implementing training programmes.
• Expand their networks and identify partners with expertise in reconstructive surgery care in post-emergency settings.

Target audience

Clinicians, civil society, government officials, and personnel from non-profit and private sectors who work on, are impacted, or interested in learning more about reconstructive surgery in post-emergency situations, and health systems strengthening.

Format

The webinar will follow a moderated panel discussion style, lasting for 60 minutes. The format involves short 5-minute presentation by each guest speaker to set the scene, with the remaining time dedicated to a moderated discussions among panelists, with additional questions sourced from the audience.

Speakers

Keynote address

Dr. Pierre QUINODOZ, President 2nd Chance Swiss Association
E-mail: pierre.quinodoz@2nd-chance.org
Affiliation: 2nd Chance Swiss Association

Specialist in Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic surgery. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, he was Assistant Professor at the Plastic Surgery Department at the University Hospital of Geneva (HUG). He owns a private practice in Geneva and remain consulting surgeon in Aesthetic at the University of Geneva. He was president of the Swiss Society of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery from 2014 to 2016 and is a founding member of the Swiss Society of Aesthetic Surgery. He is ISAPS Swiss National Secretary since 2018.

Dr Quinodoz is honoured to be fellow of the COSECSA and is also the co-founder and actual President of the Swiss humanitarian Association “2nd Chance” dedicated to reconstructive surgery teaching in Sub-Saharan Africa, founded in 2010.
Mr. Nikhil SETH, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Executive Director at UNITAR, and Co-Chair of the Global Surgery Foundation High-Level Council.
Mr. Nikhil Seth joined UNITAR as its Executive Director on Oct 1, 2015. During his term UNITAR has grown significantly in the number of beneficiaries of its services and its work has been aligned to the pillars of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. Before assuming the post of the UNITAR Executive Director, Nikhil Seth was the Director of the Division for Sustainable Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. In this role he served as head of the Rio+20 secretariat and of the secretariat for the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States, spearheading the preparations for these conferences in Rio, Brazil, and Apia, Samoa. He was also closely engaged in coordinating and advancing their follow-up.

In the United Nations Mr. Seth served as the Director for ECOSOC, Secretary of the Economic and Financial Committee (2nd Committee), Secretary of ECOSOC and with the USG of DESA.

He was closely involved with many of the Summits and Conferences of the 1990’s – as a delegate from India and as part of the support secretariat.
Prof Antoine GEISSBUHLER, Dean of the University of Geneva
E-mail: Antoine.Geissbuhler@hcuge.ch

Antoine Geissbuhler is a Professor of Medicine, Dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Geneva, Director of teaching and research, and chief-physician of the Division of eHealth and Telemedicine at Geneva University Hospitals.

He is also the Past-President of the International Medical Informatics Association, and Fellow of the American College of Medical Informaticians. He trained as a physician at Geneva University where he specialized in internal medicine, then, after a post-doctoral fellowship, became Associate Professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University. In 1999, he returned to Geneva to take the responsibility for the design and implementation of the medical information systems at Geneva University Hospitals.

He is interested in the potential of digital tools for the global development of health systems. Since 2010, he has been Director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for eHealth, and since 2018 has held the UNESCO Chair in Digital Medical Education. Author of 200 scientific publications in journals with editorial policies, his current research concerns the design of new IT tools aimed at improving the quality and efficiency of care processes. His research team, Hi5lab, is interested in the challenges of implementing and evaluating the impact of digital health tools.

This work is being applied at the local level of the Geneva health system, at the national level for the implementation of the Swiss eHealth strategy, in the framework of European projects, as well as at the international level, with the development of a major telemedicine network linking hundreds of health professionals in 20 countries in Africa and Asia, the RAFT network (https://raft.network).

Since 2020, he has been developing the Geneva Digital Health Hub (https://gdhub.org), a platform to support the implementation and development of data-driven digital health policies, including issues related to Space and Global Health (https://sgh.network).
Dr. Geoff IBBOTSON, Executive Director, Founding Member of the Global Surgery Foundation
E-mail: g.ibbotson@globalsurgeryfoundation.org

Geoff serves as the Executive Director for the Global Surgery Foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also the senior health consultant at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). He has more than 25 years of experience in medical humanitarian and disaster relief work.

He has served as a front-line surgeon in multiple countries and several conflict zones. He has also led disaster response activities, developed strategic programmes, and guided organizational and governance reviews and restructuring. While maintaining a busy surgical practice in Canada, he served as the Director of Trauma Services for the Northwest of Alberta from 2008 to 2016 and was the Chair of the Alberta Provincial Trauma Committee from 2014-16, which coordinated an integrated trauma system for 10 trauma hospitals in Alberta.

He attended medical school at the University of Toronto and completed his training as a general surgeon at the University of Calgary in 2000. Dr. Ibbotson is a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the American College of Surgeons, holding academic appointments at both the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.

Panelists

Dr Roba KHUNDAR (UK)
E-mail: roba.khundkar1@nhs.net
Affiliation: Sheffield University Teaching Hospitals

Roba Khundkar is a Consultant Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at Sheffield University Teaching Hospitals in the UK. She specialises in Sarcoma and Trauma reconstruction. After graduating from Cambridge and Oxford Universities, she completed her surgical training in Oxford with a specialist interest in sarcoma and microsurgical reconstruction. She has undertaken additional fellowship training in India and Japan in Limb Reconstruction, Microsurgery and Super-microsurgery. Her training also included several years of treating acutely injured soldiers throughout the Afghanistan conflict the at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.
She has been actively involved in Global Surgery work at multiple levels. She is a Plastic Surgery FCS Examiner for the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) and a trainer for COSECSA Partner Organisation 2nd Chance. As a founding member of the Global Anaesthesia, Surgical and Obstetric Collaboration (GASOC) in the UK, she served as Secretary to the committee. As a core faculty member of the Oxford University Global Surgery Group, she has been involved in the group’s research, educational and advocacy work. In her capacity as Senior Clinical Lecturer in Global Surgery in the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences at the University of Oxford she has supported surgical training programmes in LMICs. She is an Honorary Lecturer in Surgery at Muhimbili University, Tanzania and supports the National Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery Training programme.
She has been involved in supporting surgical care and training in active conflict zones and displaced populations. This has included being part of teams providing Limb Reconstructive services to Gaza and Surgical Training in South Sudan.
Dr Baraki ATAKLITIE (Ethiopia)
E-mail: drkiltie@yahoo.com
Affiliation: Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon for Addis Ababa University School of Medicine

Dr. Ataklitie Baraki was born in Mekelle, Tigray (Northern Ethiopia). He grew up and took all his formal education in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He finished his MD in 1989, specialty in general surgery in 1997 and Subspecialty in Plastic reconstructive and hand surgery in 2007 from Addis Ababa University.

He has been in the medical profession for nearly 34 years serving as a general practitioner, general surgeon and now working as consultant Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon for Addis Ababa University School of Medicine and seconded to ALERT Comprehensive specialized Hospital, teaching and giving surgical services. He has been working with different partners including the Ministry of health (as member of technical workforces). He has offered free surgeries for more than 5,000 people with cleft lip and palate in collaboration of Smile Train (USA based international Charity organization)
He has been the recipient of different awards including international scholar for the America Society of Plastic Surgery /Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation, 2012. He also received award of merit for the outstanding clinical service for 2022 from the Federal Ministry of Health, Ethiopia.
He is member of many international and national organizations. He is a founding member, master trainer and Country Rep. (Ethiopia) of College of Surgeons of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA). He is former president of the Ethiopian Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons’ Society. Currently he is the president of the Surgical Society of Ethiopia.
Dr Amanda GOSMAN (USA)
E-mail: agosman@health.ucsd.edu
Affiliation: UC San Diego School of Medicine

Dr. Gosman is Professor and Chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine.  She serves as Director for the Plastic Surgery Residency Program and Director of the Craniofacial and Pediatric Plastic Surgery Fellowship Program. She is Chief of Plastic Surgery at Rady Children’s Hospital and Director of the Fresh Start Clinic for Craniofacial Anomalies at Rady Children’s Hospital.  As a board-certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Gosman’s clinical interests include cleft lip and palate surgery, pediatric and adult craniofacial surgery, gender-affirming surgery and aesthetic surgery.
Dr. Gosman has extensive experience providing health care and education to low resource communities around the world and is the founder of the non-profit organization, ConnectMed International, which helps improve access and supports sustainable healthcare through education, partnerships, and research. She is also the co-founder of the SHARE (Surgeons in Humanitarian Alliance for Reconstruction, Research, and Education) program through the Plastic Surgery Foundation which is a two-year clinical and research fellowship program for surgeons in low-income countries.

Dr. Gosman is an internationally recognized expert in Craniofacial and Pediatric Plastic Surgery and has over 100 peer reviewed publications.  She has served in numerous national plastic surgery leadership roles including Chair of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Ethics Committee and Judicial Council, and Co-Editor of the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery-Global Open Journal.  
Dr Tom POTOKAR (ICRC)
E-mail: tpotokar@icrc.org
Affiliation: International Committee of the Red Cross

Tom Potokar is currently Chief Surgeon at the International Committee of the Red Cross and based in Geneva. He trained in general surgery at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa and in plastic surgery in Bristol, Cambridge, Liverpool, Swansea, and Wellington New Zealand. He was appointed as NHS consultant plastic surgeon at the Welsh Centre for Burns & Plastic Surgery in Swansea in 2004 where he worked until 2017 when he took up a full-time post as Professor of Global Burn Injury and Director of the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Burn Trauma at Swansea University. He began his career in humanitarian work with MSF in 1990, initially in Cambodia then Bosnia, Tadzhikistan, Rwanda, and Iraq.
He has subsequently worked for several different organizations in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, West Bank, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Yemen, Somalia, Tanzania, and Mali delivering training, undertaking service evaluations and in direct clinical care. In 2006 he founded Interburns and has been responsible for the development of a comprehensive integrated approach to capacity building and quality improvement in burn care and prevention in low resource environments, with programs across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, for which he was awarded an OBE in 2017.

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