The Head-and-Neck Section on the annual Sylvester O’Halloran Surgical Scientific meeting was again held as a virtual meeting via Zoom. The guest co-chair joining the regular Convenor, Professor John Fenton, was his colleague Mr Stephen Ryan from the local ORL-HNS Department at the University Hospital Limerick.
Two prizes were on offer this year for best oral and oral/poster presentations. The large contingent of OMFS delegates were welcomed while their excellent contributions concentrated on trauma and the non-oncologic reconstructive aspects of their specialty.
Attendees were reminded of the importance of publishing their work and that female trainees were three times most likely to do so, as reported in a recently published paper reviewing the historical trends of the same congress. The authors, Rente et al, also found that up to 40% of specific or similar topics delivered previously were ultimately found to be published by other units and 10% of papers appeared in print more than five years after presentation.
The winners were Dr Michael Walsh representing Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and Beaumont Hospital for his oral presentation on managing epistaxis in the COVID-19 era and Dr Lee Peeperkorn for her oral/poster on a series of patients treated with a bioabsorbable lateral nasal stent from the University Hospital Waterford.
Honourable mentions were provided to Dr Eoin Cleere for his paper on nerve monitoring in thyroid surgery and Dr Lisa O’Byrne for a talk on the quality of research in otology journals while an oral poster on PPPD from a UL medical student Debola Shomaye was also praised.
The meeting concluded with a hope that the next one in March 2023 would be live and even more engaging.
Prof John E Fenton, Consultant in Academic ORL-HNS University Hospital Limerick and current President UEMS-ORL
