HPBASA News
Hepato-Pancreatic-Biliary Association
January 2012 Newsletter
Dear Members and friends
On behalf of the Exco, I extend greetings and best wishes for 2012.
HPBASA Annual Meeting
HPBASA Multi-Disciplinary 2012 Update/Consensus Meeting, Pretoria 6-7 Oct 2012
As has been our practice in the past, major congresses are held every two years with smaller focussed meetings on alternate years. As we held our major congress in conjunction with E-AHPBA in Cape Town in 2011, this year will be a focussed meeting.
This will be held in Pretoria from 6th-7th October, following on the Pretoria Surgical Controversies meeting. It will probably be held at Unitas Hospital, the venue for a previous successful Consensus meeting in 2008. It will be organised by Dr Rob Bond and his team and will undoubtedly maintain the high standards attained at previous meetings. This promises to be a stimulating and entertaining meeting, focussing on specific topics in depth. I urge you all to try to attend and spread the word to your colleagues. Details of the program will be sent to you in future and will also be available on our website
www.hpbasa.co.za.
Previous meeting
2011: 9th Congress of the E-AHPBA in association with CAPE TOWN 2011
12– 16 April 2011, ICC, Cape Town
Congress Co-Chair and HPBASA Past-President Professor Martin Smith put in a huge effort to arrange what proved to be a hugely successful meeting. On behalf of HPBASA, I extend our warm congratulations and gratitude to Martin and all the other members that contributed to the success of the meeting. The organisation, academic and social programmes were uniformly excellent and the meeting proved to be a great financial success. As a result of this, HPBASA is in a very healthy financial state, which will provide much needed financial stability in future.
Delegate feedback has been excellent and we made many new friends and ties, which will further strengthen our Association in future.
Future Meetings
10th World congress of the IHPBA will take place in Paris from July 1-5, 2012
10th E-APHBA Congress will take place in early June 2013 in Belgrade, Serbia.
HPBASA news
We are now formally a chapter of the European- African HPBA (E-AHPBA) this association formerly being the EHPBA. The new title was announced at the Cape Town 2011 meeting.
An HPBASA AGM was scheduled for and took place during the Cape Town meeting. As per our constitution, we were obliged to elect new members for the Executive Committee, except for the posts of President, who is elected for a 4-year period. Regretfully, attendance was poor and there were insufficient members to constitute a quorum, thus elections could not be held.
Strictly speaking, we have failed to abide by the requirements of our Constitution to hold elections every two years. I took the executive decision to continue with the current Exco until the 2012 meeting where a new committee as well as the President-elect will be elected. Our current Exco thus remains as follows:
| President | Jose Ramos |
| Past-President | Martin Smith |
| Secretary | Jones Omoshoro-Jones |
| Treasurer | Anthony Beeton |
| Academic Program Chairman | Sandie Thomson |
|
| Elected councillors | Schalk van der Merwe |
| Alistair Millar |
| Chris Ziady |
| Chris Kassianides |
| Charles Sanyika |
| Co-opted members | Georgia Demetriou (Oncology) |
| Simon Naylor (Pathology) |
Schalk van der Merwe has since left the country and his position has not been filled. I do not feel that this is necessary at present.
There will be a General Assembly at the 2012 Consensus Meeting and members are urged to attend in order that a constituted election can take place. I encourage members to nominate candidates for the various positions. Nominations should be sent to our Secretariat, Yvonne Pyne-James at
rsvp@yebo.co.za
Chronic Pancreatitis Patient Registry
The Registry is up and running and you are urged to add patients with chronic pancreatitis to this Registry that has been developed with the generous support of Abbott Laboratories (previously Solvay Pharma) and George Dempster of E2 Solutions. This is an exciting venture aimed at developing a comprehensive national database of patients with this disease, which will provide opportunity for further academic initiatives. Other HPB diseases will be added to the Registry in future. The registry can be accessed via the
www.hpbasa.co.za website – registration is required and HPBASA or SAGES membership encouraged.
The Registry and initial data have been presented by your President at various meetings, with genuine interest and appreciation being shown by the audiences.
Abbott Laboratories (Solvay)-HPBASA Travelling Fellowship
We are grateful for the ongoing support of Abbott Laboratories (previously Solvay Pharma), which has generously increased the Annual Travelling Fellowship to R40 000.00. This is aimed at assisting HPBASA members to visit overseas units to further their knowledge of HPB disease. Interested members are urged to contact the Secretariat for further information. Applications for 2012 are invited. I encourage you to spread the word about this Travelling Fellowship to juniors in any of the disciplines dealing with HPB disease.
Chronic Pancreatitis Guidelines
I am pleased to report that this HPBASA initiative was finalised and published in the SAMJ in Dec 2010. Under the chairmanship of Prof P Bornman, a committee made up of Johan Botha, Jose Ramos, Martin Smith, Schalk van der Merwe, Gill Watermeyer and Chris Ziady, prepared guidelines for the management of chronic pancreatitis for the benefit of doctors and funders alike. The invaluable support of Abbott is much appreciated as is the hard work and efforts of the committee chairman and members.
Your President has presented these guidelines to healthcare funders on numerous occasions and it is hoped that these initiatives will make it easier to manage these challenging patients without the frequent funder problems that are encountered. We hope that the guidelines will also aid in assisting our colleagues to treat these patients appropriately.
Regional Meetings
Members are encouraged to hold local meetings focussing on HPB disease or to participate in allied meetings. HPBASA will be happy to assist in these ventures and provide the academic or organisational support required. These local meetings would typically be aimed at different target groups than those that would typically attend HPBASA annual National meetings. Any enquiries or suggestions would be welcomed.
Membership issues
You are urged to keep your annual contributions up to date to allow the Association to cover its running costs. Membership fees remain at R350 per year for members and R200 for junior doctors. I urge you to encourage your colleagues who practice in the field of HPB disease to join this unique and exciting Association.
Please submit any suggestions and queries to the Secretariat or to me at
jramos@wbs.co.za
Website
Please visit the HPBASA website at
www.hpbasa.co.za for ongoing developments, membership application and contributions to registries
Secretariat
Yvonne Pyne-James and her team at RSVP are running the HPBASA secretariat. Yvonne can be contacted at
rsvp@yebo.co.za. Telephone number is (011) 463 4064 and fax is (011) 4631041.
Best regards
Jose Ramos
President
HPBASA
