Conference report: Research for Greener Surgery 2023 at the University of Birmingham

Adesoji O. Ademuyiwa¹, Maria Picciochi<sup>2

1</sup>Director, NIHR Global Surgery Unit, Lagos Hub. Professor of Surgery (Paediatric and Surgical Epidemiology) Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Lagos. aademuyiwa@unilag.edu.ng.
²Clinical Research Fellow, NIHR Global Surgery Unit, University of Birmingham. Surgical trainee, Hospital Prof. Dr. Fernando Fonseca, Portugal. m.picciochi@bham.ac.uk.

Purpose The NIHR Global Surgery Unit annual meeting is the highlight of the network, giving the chance for face-to-face contact between the leadership and delivery teams from around the world. This year, it took place in the city of Lagos in Southern Nigeria. We met for 3 days with over 150 participants predominantly from Nigeria, but with representation from 13 other countries: Benin, Canada, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Switzerland, UK, and the USA. Although there is a financial and carbon cost to such a meeting, it is incredibly high value in-terms of communication, direction, strategy setting, and capacity building for the future. Policy change

Zahra Ahmed¹, Alexander Zargaran^2,3, Matthew Harris⁴, Angela Lam⁵, Christian Asher⁶, Allan Ponniah², Ali Esmaeili², Afshin Mosahebi<sup>2,3

1</sup>University College London Medical School, London, United Kingdom
²Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
³Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom
⁴Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
⁵Evelina London Children’s Hospital, London, United Kingdom
⁶Plastic Surgery Trainees Association, United Kingdom

Sustainable surgery, healthcare efficiency and the use of MedTech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are three major focus points for healthcare systems worldwide. In the United Kingdom, the National Healthcare Service accounts for a quarter of UK public sector emissions1. With the UK government targeting net zero by 2050, there is an urgent need for increased sustainability in surgery and healthcare to meet this target2. Furthermore, healthcare costs are rising; governmental healthcare expenditure grew 9.6% between 2020 and 2021, the fastest year-on-year growth rate since records began in 19973. This emphasises the need to improve efficiency to make budgets stretch further. AI in healthcare has the potential to increase efficiency and it has been reported that generative AI will grow faster in health care than any other sector4. In order to tackle the questions that come with these changes to healthcare systems, innovations and innovators are needed.  A collaborative Hackathon between the Royal Free Plastic Surgery Department, the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) and the Plastic Surgery Trainees Association (PLASTA) was held on the 9-10th October 2023 at the Royal Free Hospital. This was following the successful Royal Free*PLASTA Hackathon in November 2022. In attendance were 58 talented and entrepreneurial-minded delegates, speakers and mentors from ground-breaking start-ups including CMR Surgical and judges from a range of backgrounds including Professors of Plastic Surgery, Business Professors and the founder of Proximie.   The Royal Free Hackathon had three main aims for delegates to focus their innovations revolving around (i) making surgery more sustainable, (ii) the use of ChatBots to improve healthcare outcomes and (iii) how to improve operating room efficiency. 

Jonothan Earnshaw, Directory of BJS Academy, delivers his talk ‘Future of scientific surgical publication’. A reprise of his presentation at the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI)’s 2024 Annual Meeting.