AO Spine Asia Pacific uniting experts

Key initiatives pinned down for the next three years

AO Spine Asia Pacific Joint Committee Meeting (JCM) defined the regional key initiatives for the upcoming 3-years in their meeting in Chengdu, China, on 11 January. The meeting was organized in a completely new way for the four committees. It brought together over 40 participants, including Committee officers, Council chairpersons, Regional board officers, industrial partners, and AO staff from Switzerland and Asia Pacific.

The theme of the meeting was One Collaborative Power. Officers contributed, presented, and discussed their ideas in 2 committee breakout sessions, 1 council breakout session and 2 big group sessions. In the end, 12 ideas were agreed at committee, country and Regional level, falling under the 2020–2022 AO Spine Asia Pacific CIP-strategy: Collaboration (C) of People and Association, Integration (I) of Committee Ideas, and Strong Partnership (P) with Industrial partners.

An exhibition was organized to display latest information from the region, including membership status, Asia Pacific strategic direction, highlighted projects from 2019, and a new membership campaign. The exhibition provided better understanding on the latest developments and enhanced the officers' knowledge to promote AO Spine in their valuable networks.

This new meeting format and the outcome was highly appreciated and set the direction for AO Spine Asia Pacific for the next level of success. "WE Spine! WE Shine!"

A monthly interactive webinar series combines online and in-person learning

The recently launched In-League webinar program from AO Spine Asia Pacific brings together six councils and encourages group participation through satellite sessions. The series is open to all AO Spine members around the world. Surgeons can attend virtually on their own, but in addition, directors of AO Spine Centers, Board and Council Officers, and Council delegates act as satellite coaches and host satellite groups attending from their hospitals. In these groups, participants can discuss the topic of the day with their peers and the satellite coach, before and after the webinar.

This monthly gathering is an opportunity to share knowledge globally and to network with your peers around the world. The first webinars were held in November 2019 and January 2020 with more than 670 participants in total. 18 AO Spine Centers and hospitals set up satellite groups for participants.

Chairperson Education Program—a recipe for success

The latest AO Spine Asia Pacific Chairperson Education Program (CEP) was held in Busan, Korea in February 2020 with 10 participants from 8 countries. This comprehensive 6-week program is designed to equip experienced faculty members with practical skills, to understand and combine different elements that are needed to compose an effective educational event.

The CEP started with online preparation 5 weeks prior to the face-to-face event, and the 1.5-day in-person event was also followed by a one-week online follow-up. All the participants showed great enthusiasm and professionalism in getting prepared for the program. The average participation rate in the online preparation activities reached 93.5% one week after the event and over 80% right before the event.

Feroze Ali from India found the program helpful and informative. He also got insights into organizing events in the future: "Being a Chairperson of an AO Spine event is a big responsibility. I would first try and get faculty best suited for the course, without bias or pressure from seniors. I would include few lectures, but more interactive sessions, case discussions, and dealing with complications."

Upon program completion, participants can apply the key principles of curriculum design and management to AO events. They will be able to base their instructional design on problem identification, needs assessment of target learners, learning objectives, educational methods, evaluation, and feedback. Participants of the CEP are well placed to succeed as chairpersons of AO educational events with the broad range of educational principles and best practices they learned.