Message from the SICOT President, S. Rajasekaran
Dear Friends in SICOT,
It is my privilege and pleasure to communicate with you through the first Newsletter of 2018. My congratulations to Dr Syah Bahari and the new Newsletter Editorial Board. The Newsletter has served to be a central communication line for all of us and I am sure that the new Editorial Board will take it to new heights.
SICOT is now the largest international society of orthopaedic surgeons with more than 6,000 active members from 119 countries. We are proud to have member representation from every part of the world and this makes our Society rich in culture and diversity. We are proud of this fact and hope our membership will continue to grow from every corner of the world.
The last two years have seen a lot of changes in SICOT. The Executive Committee has been keen to bring transparency and involvement of the membership in all the activities of the Society and towards this aim, all new appointments have been by open calls and transparent selections. We have also made provisions for participation from grass-root levels into all the committees, allowing more membership involvement. We are looking at members with proven commitment to ascend up the leadership pathways in future.
Our Society is being transformed from a ‘Knowledge provider’ to a ‘Knowledge creator’. Our Society’s members are from different countries and with different pathologies providing a unique opportunity for clinical research. To harness this strength, the SICOT Research Academy has been set up with Prof Matthew Dobbs, USA, as the Research Academy Chair. Three Research Awards of USD 2,000 each have been instituted for best research submissions in the three categories of ‘Basic Science’, ‘Clinical Science’ and ‘Young Investigator Award’. Two annual Research Grants of USD 10,000 each have also been instituted which will help SICOT members to perform multi-centre research.
Our annual meetings have gone from strength to strength and is now the preferred academic meeting for 3,000 orthopaedic surgeons around the world. Our Scientific Programme Chair, Prof Vikas Khanduja, has done a commendable job in structuring an academic bonanza for the Cape Town meeting and the forthcoming meeting in Montreal. My congratulations to him and all the Section Committee Chairs for the robust scientific programme for Montreal.
Looking ahead, we should concentrate an increasing membership by making SICOT relevant to younger surgeons throughout the world. The National Representatives form the backbone of our Society and carry the important responsibility of popularizing SICOT in their respective countries. I would strongly urge each one of them to encourage young surgeons in their country to share their work to the rest of the world by submitting abstracts to our annual meetings. They should also form a vital link between SICOT and their respective national associations and conduct SICOT sessions during the annual meetings. It should be the endeavour of every National Representative to spread the excellent academic and social content of our annual meetings to the surgeons in their country.
The Montreal meeting is shaping excellently to be one of our best annual meetings and I look forward to seeing all of you there.
With best regards,
Yours in SICOT,
Prof S. Rajasekaran
President - SICOT
