Greetings SICOT Friends,
As I embark on my SICOT Presidential journey, it’s a pleasure to pen my first editorial highlighting our prestigious Society's vision and developments in the first quarter. It’s been a busy three months since our very successful annual World Orthopaedic Congress in Belgrade with delegates attending from over 95 countries. I would sincerely like to thank the Congress President, Marko Bumbasirevic and his team for hosting a stellar event!
The portfolio of activities of the society has expanded significantly and so has the membership. Therefore, to enhance communication we plan to send these updates on a regular basis with the frequency of the main newsletters decreasing to two a year.
It was a pleasure to host the SICOT Strategy Retreat last month in Cambridge as a brainstorming event to develop the vision for the future of SICOT as we approach our centenary year. The focus was on ‘outside the box ideas’ rather than just ‘what could we do better’. What resulted was an illuminating, constructive and focused meeting with the central theme on transformation as we move forward to a brighter, vibrant, diverse, equitable and leading global academic orthopaedic society. The results of the “Ambitious about SICOT Survey” were also analysed and we were delighted to see a great response to the open questions as well. There are some clear messages from the membership around branding, communication, a central overarching aim, a personalised approach, subspecialisation and vision for the future which we have taken on board at the retreat and will be discussing with the BODS, Committee Chairs and the International Council over January and then present the final mandate for the next 5 years to the membership.
The mantra for my term will therefore be transformation but also to maintain and strengthen all the activities on our portfolio which the relevant members of the Executive Committee will present below and continued governance with responsible fiscal management. In addition, as a part of the transformation process, we would like to focus on our brand, our vision, curating and storing our rich history, harnessing the power of technology to support our trainees via virtual and augmented reality training, reaching inaccessible areas and being there for those who need us most, supporting our patients through scientifically robust patient information, broadening our membership to include allied health professionals and medical students, expanding affiliate memberships globally and finally endeavour to regain our international reputation as the foremost global academic orthopaedic society and further collaborate with other societies globally.
I would like to congratulate and thank Ashok Johari from India, Past President, Gowreeson Thevendran from Singapore, Education Academy Chair and Aju Bosco from India, Young Surgeons Committee Chair for their untiring support and services to SICOT as they come off the Executive Board; and congratulate and welcome Hatem Said from Egypt as the President Elect and Margaret Fok from Hong Kong as Education Academy Chair to the Executive Board. Many congratulations also to all the newly appointed Chairs of the committees HERE. Welcome to the SICOT Leadership family and we look forward to your contributions.
A note of appreciation and thanks to my predecessors Philippe Hernigou, John Dormas, S Rajashekaran and Keith Luk who have been inspirational leaders and whose tireless energy and vision have seen the society blossom over the last decade.
Finally, I have two requests:
1. We have had a request from our National Representative in Afghanistan, Dr. Emal Wardak to help set up a Bone Bank in Afghanistan. So if you have the expertise and would like to join the task force for the same please do get in touch with me directly.
2. Committees are the backbone and the future of SICOT. The work of our committes is essential for fulfilling our vision and delivery of our educational, research and advocacy programme. So if you are an enthusiastic surgeon, wishing to share your experience and expertise, and are keen on getting involved in making a difference globally, then do apply to be on one of our committees via this link HERE.
It is certainly an honour, pleasure, and a privilege to be serving as President of SICOT in such an exciting and transformative phase; I take this opportunity to wish all of you the very best for a healthy and prosperous 2025!
Onwards and Upwards!
Vikas Khanduja
President, SICOT
[email protected]
