President's Message =================== * Sheldon Kabaker ## ISHRS Live Surgical Workshops—We Need Them
![][1] Education of physicians and assistants is of the highest priority for the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery. The strength of our organization has been the *Hair Transplant Forum International* publication and our annual meeting emphasizing didactic sessions and classroom workshops. The introduction of new concepts and techniques with the review of past experiences is essential for the ongoing education of the practicing physician. Lectures, discussion groups, video and poster presentations, and interaction with exhibitors and vendors are all regular features of our meeting. Live surgical workshops have been incorporated as optional programs at some of our meetings. However, some of these workshops have been limited as to numbers of attendees depending on the facilities available at the particular meeting site. At some meetings, live workshops are not possible because of legal restrictions at the locality. From a personal point-of-view, I found the live operating room workshops to be among the most influential experiences I have had in hair restoration surgery. I recall meetings in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the 1970's under the direction of D. Bluford Stough, III, MD, who deserves the credit for organizing the first such type of educational endeavors in hair surgery. The highlight of Dr. Stough's meeting was a day spent in the clinic operatories. In the actual working situation, the student/surgeon observed operating room dimensions, equipment, lighting, supplies, patient positioning, surgeon's movements, cutter and placer roles and movement, and overall operating ambiance. The three-dimensional aspects of surgery, which cannot be presented in the classroom or auditorium, are shown in the live operating workshop. The ISHRS Board of Governors wishes to keep live operating workshops a part of the Society's function. We hope to participate, co-sponsor, or even solely sponsor a meeting which is primarily a live surgical workshop to complement our annual meeting. Presently, the World Hair Society has a spring workshop superbly organized and directed by Dr. Matt Leavitt in Orlando, Florida. This year's meeting held March 3–7, 1999, featured paralleled surgical techniques, the results of which will be featured in the Fall meeting in San Francisco. This live workshop featured comparison studies of techniques, i.e., microscopic follicular units done on one side of the scalp versus mini-grafts and micro-grafts cut by transillumination on the other side, each done by the surgeon who is a proponent of a particular technique. The results of growth and naturalness should be evaluated by October at the ISHRS Annual Meeting. This year, the ISHHS gave its official support to the WHS and Dr. Leavitt for the Spring meeting. It is hoped that there will be an ongoing formal relationship between this spring live workshop and the ISHRS. Our Society is officially independent of any other medical organization, and we are undergoing the process to give our own continued medical education credits through the ACCME. Myself, Paul Cotterill, and Jim Arnold will be spending time in Chicago with a surveyor from the ACCME, with the hope that we will be allowed to give continuing medical education credit independently for all of our meetings and not have to rely on affiliated societies. This would mean that our annual meeting and any live surgery workshops could be granted Continuing Medical Education (CMR) credit honrs by the ISHRS. Look for further announcements in the *Forum* about this. * Copyright © 1999 by The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif