COME TO THE 2003 CLINICAL CONGRESS!

Dear Colleagues:

On behalf of the entire College, I would like to extend our warmest invitation to you to join us in Chicago for the 89th Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

The multitude of changes and the latest advances in health care require surgeons to learn new skills and to take an active approach to learning throughout their professional careers. The College's Program Committee has exerted outstanding efforts to bring to all of our members an extensive array of educational sessions and courses that it hopes will meet the needs of Fellows and enhance the care of their surgical patients.

The program spans virtually every area of surgical research and practice, including topics such as management of surgical complications, best practices relating to abdominal and pelvic radiation, and advances in the field of genomics. Competency issues are incorporated into the program through topics such as the current and future state of laparoscopic colon and rectal surgery, patient safety, evidence-based surgery, and the role of the surgeon in injury prevention. Advances in technology will be addressed in sessions on image-guided surgery, robotic-assisted surgery, and enhancing care to the patient through the use of handheld devices (PDAs). The program also includes contemporary educational issues, such as training and mentoring surgeons, ethics, and surgical infection and antibiotics. The Programa Hispanico will be offered again this year. The named lecturers include an outstanding collection of clinicians, academicians, surgeon scientists, surgeon historians, and surgeon ethicists.

In addition to these sessions, the Clinical Congress offers a myriad of postgraduate courses, including skills-oriented courses on topics such as lymphatic mapping, ultrasound, stereotactic breast biopsy, and bariatric surgery. Didactic postgraduate courses that provide a more in-depth exposure to a variety of clinical topics will be offered, including minimal access surgery, head and neck surgery, and a review course in urology. Presentations of papers on leading-edge clinical research, presentations by young investigators, and video-based educational sessions complete the comprehensive selection of sessions and activities. The meeting will include extraordinary scientific and technical exhibits.

The Clinical Congress has been designed to offer you a wide range of educational opportunities and will inspire you not only to keep abreast of the latest scientific developments in surgery, but to meet the various professional challenges you face today and will encounter in the future. I hope you will join us in Chicago this year.

With best wishes,

Edward R. Laws, MD, FACS
Chair, Board of Regents