The Education Committee has experienced an extremely busy and fruitful year for 2017 under the new leadership of Elise De. One of the committee’s main priorities was that of online education. Vast improvements were made in this direction to date.
A combined effort of all the committee members involved the review of over 300 videos previously taped for ICS TV. Content that was deemed out-of-date, poor quality, and/or inaccurate was removed. The new ICS TV platform will be launched at the ICS booth at the annual meeting in Florence. We certainly have to give Koodos and a huge message of thanks to Dom and his IT team for the vast work performed on this project!
Several videos were commissioned by the Education Committee for Faculty Development, some of which can already be viewed on line. “Preparing a high quality poster for your ICS presentation: Tips for success” “Creating effective slides for your ICS podium presentation” and “Chairing your ICS Committee: Tips for success” are just a few examples. Besides these more generic examples, some will also be specific to more of a scientific content. Also the Physiotherapy committee has started the project “Physiotherapy Assessment of Urinary Incontinence (Female)” for an online educational module. The plan moving forward is to have some of the older, quality Urodynamics educational modules re-filmed. To help encourage financial support, a new concept is in the midst of developing an Industry link as an ethical means to highlight the good work done by industry.
Plans for the Annual meeting include a new format being trialed this year for “Network with the Experts”. Be sure not to miss this wonderful opportunity on Friday 15th September from 1pm to 2pm in the exhibit hall over lunch.
New innovations were developed for the 2017 Workshops. The Education committee Webex meetings allowed for improved management and aligning of workshop choices. 37 out of 74 workshops were accepted, including a new 1 hour format to be trialed. There is a wonderful range of topics including 2 hands-on laparoscopic workshops. ICS Core Curriculum workshops run by the committees are also running again this year due to popular demand. The committee intentionally selected new speakers/chairs for running topics (e.g. prolapse).
The Education Committee developed a new in-app evaluation form for attendees where data can be captured within the workshop itself live, rather than weeks after the meeting.
Lots of work was conducted this year on alliances and expenses for ICS Education Courses and Guest Lectures. These were arranged by the Education Committee to organise 19 events which included all disciplines of healthcare. The budget for 2017 was £22,500 which is less than in all previous years but this did not impact programming and collaboration. Guest lectures have been arranged with societies such as AUA, EAU, SIU, IUGA and PACS. New alliances have also been formed with The Pelvic Floor Research Society, The American Society of Colorectal Surgeons and the European Society for Sexual Medicine for 2018 and beyond. The committee has also worked hard to ensure that different speakers are used at these events and the funding rules are applied.
The budget for 2018 has already been approved and includes developing the ICS Institute with the School Directors and updating faculty database with possible links to evaluations. Plans for 2018 workshop applications are underway with a deadline of 3rd January 2018. We will be focusing on Educational Assessment and considering new models for payment for Workshop Attendance to enable one pass to all workshops.
We say goodbye to Marijke after almost 10 years of supporting the ICS Education Committee. Her knowledge and input has been invaluable over the years. Her enthusiasm for the importance of the ICS multi-disciplinary aspects has been key and a constant reminder of why that makes the ICS so unique. We shall miss Marijke but welcome Paula Igualada-Martinez to be our liaison between the physiotherapy and education committees
We look forward to seeing you all at the Annual meeting in Florence!