Presentation at ASIT (Association of Surgeons in Training) Belfast, UK 29th March 2014.
Thanks to the invitation of the outgoing president, Mr Andi Beamish, The Right to Heal was screened at the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) conference, the only UK-wide surgical trainee conference for all specialties. Professor Michael Cotton, Chairman of ICES gave an abbreviated outline of the purpose and goal of ICES. This was followed by a presentation by Dr. Jaymie Henry, Executive Director of ICES, of the global advocacy efforts around Essential Surgery via the 15x15 campaign.
Over 600 delegates had gathered in Belfast’s spacious auditorium, where only a few months earlier, US President Barack Obama had adressed the G8 summit. Your ICES presenters felt not just a little awed at the prospect of speaking to such a large audience, which included all four presidents of the British and Irish Royal Colleges of Surgery, rarely present all together at any one event.
This was thus a huge privilege, as well as a great responsibility.
During the showing of the Right to Heal film the audience was hushed in rapt attention: indeed, when the viewing had finished, you could have heard a pin drop. Furthermore, during both talks, the same fixed concentration was virtually palpable throughout the auditorium.
Numbers of surgical trainees afterwards presented their compliments, and registered their keenness to get involved.
There was no doubt that the UK Surgeons of the future were as enthusiastic for the aims of ICES, as they were afterwards at jiving to the excellent sounds of the medical band, the Arythmics, in the grand replica dining hall of the Titanic, recreated in Belfast’s dockland.
