How the GSC began:
In 2009, AO Spine's leadership was looking for new ways to reach the global spine community. As a result, AO Spine's flagship event, the Global Spine Congress (GSC), was created. The first meeting took place in San Francisco with just over 400 participants.
What makes the GSC so unique?
The GSC rotates to a different region of the world each year, bringing personalized and case-based educational programs to spine professionals. This truly international congress provides a unique approach to knowledge sharing and innovation development to the treatment of spinal disorders and improved patient care through interactive platforms and discussions.
The GSC goes beyond just the research and science but includes the importance of patient management. The GSC also offers members only sessions providing practical knowledge on managing critical day-to-day activities.
How has the GSC evolved over the years?
At the GSC, participants are fully engaged in the educational sessions along with proactively networking with their peers. In addition, GSC is not only seeing participation numbers increase, but is also seeing growth in international research submissions particularly in under-represented areas.
"We do not want just an audience, we want participants."
(Jeffrey Wang, GSC Chairperson)
Celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2019, GSC broke its previous record from the year before for the highest numbers of abstracts received and had nearly 2'000 participants and over 60 exhibiting companies. In 2020 GSC was to go to Rio de Janeiro and we saw the highest number of abstracts ever received for Latin America. A total of 1'234 abstracts were submitted in over 25 categories.
The GSC is constantly looking at ways to further develop the way it creates and delivers knowledge. This might take on the form of research competitions between groups, more interaction, or live demonstrations.
