Held in Houston, Texas, the Academic Surgical Congress (ASC) is the largest academic surgical meet in the world. The theme of the 18th ASC revolved around mental health and suicide prevention within the healthcare fraternity, particularly surgeons. AKU stood alongside some of the world’s leading institutions including the University of Alabama, University of Michigan, Massachusetts General/ Brigham Hospital (Harvard), North-western, Baylor, and University of North Carolina.
A joint initiative of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) and the Society of University Surgeons (SUS), the Academic Surgical Congress (ASC) came into being in 2005. The ASC aims to educate, advance and nurture careers of surgeons by providing them the opportunity to come together and discuss the latest advances in healthcare.
AKU fellows presented 27 abstracts at the ASC on a wide range of disciplines including surgical education, gender disparities in surgery, global surgical issues, clinical research, database analyses and so on. These fellows had been under the mentorship and guidance of Dr Adil Haider, Dean of AKU Medical College, Dr Saleem Islam, Chair of AKU’s Department of Surgery, Dr Sana Zeeshan, Director Breast Screening and Outreach Programme at AKU Hospital, Dr Lubna Vohra, Assistant Professor at AKU’s Department of Surgery and Dr Nabeel Zafar, AKU class of 2008.
Taking great pride in the quality and breadth of work coming out of AKU, Dr Saleem Islam, Chair of AKU’s Department of Surgery said: “Our students are superstars in the making. Mature, confident, super intelligent, incredibly hard-working people. I get a feeling of immense pride when I see them presenting and representing AKU at these national conferences and impressing everyone. To top it all, they actually won both of the travelling awards. Outstanding!”
This meet was particularly nostalgic for Dr Adil as life came full circle for him in this moment. Having represented his alma mater, AKU at prestigious platforms around the world as a student, he was now witnessing the next generation take the stage that he had once presented on. Dr Adil has also served as the President of the AAS in the past.