13th AACA Conference: A Trip to Remember
Dr Azrina Md Ralib (IIUM) - Recipient of the JSA-JFSA-WFSA-Baxter Scholarship
I was fortunate indeed to have had the chance to attend the 13th AACA conference in Fukouka, Japan, from 31st May to 6th June 2010. Winning the scholarship sponsored by the JSA-JFSAWFSA- Baxter for young promising anaesthesiologists from developing countries opened opportunities for me to explore Japan and to get acquainted with people from various countries.
My long and arduous trip started on a rainy and cold winter day in Christchurch, New Zealand. I have been in Kiwi land for the past six months for my PhD degree in acute kidney injury (AKI) in the ICU. The chance to get away from my normal routine work and endless literature reviews and to be back to the world of anaesthesiology really gave me fresh new energy. I boarded the Singapore Airline flight, which is my preferred airline for its excellent service. This gave me the chance to meet with other delegates from Malaysia. After a nine hour flight from Christchurch, a six hour transit in Singapore and another six hour flight to Fukuoka, I finally touched down in Japan. At the airport, whilst looking for a taxi, I met Prof Datin Dr Norsidah and Datin Dr Sivasakthi who were staying at the same hotel. Little did I know, they would become my “partner in crime” exploring the city of Fukouka.
Fukuoka is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyushu. On arrival at our hotel, we were disappointed to be told that we could not check-in before 3.00 pm. To buy time, we decided to explore the city of Fukuoka. Even though I was very tired from the 22 hours journey, the exploration turned out to be an interesting event. We managed to visit the Fukuoka Tower, Fukuoka City Museum, Momochi seaside, Fukuoka Dome and the Robo-square. We also managed to visit the Ohori Park and Fukuoka Castle Ruin on our way back to the hotel. Eventually at 3.00 pm sharp, we were allowed to checkin to our rooms. We attended the opening ceremony and welcome cocktails later in the evening.
The conference started bright and early the next day, with the nice summer breeze of Fukuoka. The first plenary session by Dr Jonathan Moss turned out to be an eye opener for us. The moral is to have the inquisitive mind in our daily clinical work which could lead to a breakthrough in medicine that could improve the quality of life of so many patients, albeit a long and dedicated research effort. A simple research question led Dr Jonathan Moss and his team to a 20-year project, resulting in the development of a much needed antagonist of morphine's peripheral side effects, N-methylnaltrexone (MNTX). Apparently, the drug has been recently approved for clinical usage in Malaysia as well as in other countries.
There were three symposia which ran concurrently covering most of the anaesthetic topics ranging from pain medicine, ICU, cardiac anaesthesia etc. I attended a few symposia that were different and unique such as Manpower in Anaesthesia, Innovations in Anaesthesia and Anaesthesia Education and Simulation amongst other things. During the coffee break, we had a chance to visit the excellent poster presentations, where four out of twenty were from Malaysia. Congratulations to all!
On Day 2, we visited various temples and a shrine near the Gion area, and also the futuristic shopping mall and the Canal City with an amazing waterfront display.
My poster titled "Survey of Knowledge and Practice of Intraoperative Temperature Management" was presented on the fourth day of the conference. On the same day, there was apresentation ceremony for the winners of the JSA-JCSA-WFSA-Baxter Scholarship, where I had the chance to meet with the President, Secretary, and Chairman of Education Committee of the World Federation of the Society of Anaesthesiology (WFSA) and also the Chairman of the Conference, Professor Koji Sumikawa.
The congress banquet was held on the last night of the conference. Surprisingly, there was a variety of halal food prepared for us. It was indeed a lovely and memorable night to remember.
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The conference ended on the morning of June the 5th. In the afternoon, I attended the Simulation in Anaesthesia Practice workshop facilitated by three facilitators from Singapore. Even though there were only four participants at the workshop, it was indeed very well delivered with lots of hands-on practice. It is my hope that I can use this training to further improve our highfidelity patients’ simulation (HPS) curriculum for medical undergraduates, and hopefully for future postgraduates later. The trip ended with Sayonara to the Japanese folks, and back to the freezing winter of Christchurch.
DR AZRINA MD RALIB
Christchurch School of Medicine,
University of Otago, 2 Riccarton Avenue,
PO Box 4345, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
