26 May 2020

Southwest Chapter Representative Frank McDermott hosted a virtual chapter meeting on the 21st of May.

The Southwest chapter hosted a meeting to 40 Consultants and trainee members from the region. The meeting started with an overview of the ACPGBI response to COVID-19 from President Nicola Fearnhead. This was followed by updates from Mark Coleman (Chair of JAG) on endoscopy including future thoughts on training such as endoscopy academies and regional endoscopy leads. Nader Francis (ex-SW Chapter representative) gave an excellent and balanced talk on surgical approach, laparoscopy and some of the technologies available to reduce exposure to surgical plume. Neil Smart (Editor in Chief, Colorectal disease) discussed the impact to research and NIHR projects as well as encouraging our members to engage with collaborative projects such as COVID-SURG and COVID-CANCER. Watch out for the Colorectal Disease special edition on COVID-19 in June. The last 2 talks covered the impact on education and training and the changes to processes such as ARCP from Tim Cook (Consultant Surgeon, Gloucester) and Lisa Massey (ST8 Colorectal and SW Dukes representative). With such a packed programme there were only a few minutes for questions and we discussed the future of ‘cold/ hot’ sites and the wider implementation of qFIT testing. The chapter members were signposted to future ACPGBI events such as ACP Connect and to contact me if they have ideas for future meetings. I am planning a regional training event with the Dukes club. Please follow our twitter channel @SW_ACPGBI Frank McDermott (SW Chapter Rep)

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