Asian Surgical Network Symposium

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Asian Surgical Network Symposium

46 Asian Surgical Leaders Gather in Singapore for Inaugural Asian Surgical Network Symposium

The Symposium saw health systems come together from across the region to shed light on the impact of COVID-19 on surgical systems.

The first ever Asian Surgical Network Symposium took place in Singapore from 20-21 February 2023 at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre. The Symposium saw 46 regional surgical leaders and representatives come together to share key insights into their diverse experiences managing the impact of COVID-19 on their healthcare systems. Marking the progression of a global health research partnership spanning 9 countries in Asia, the Symposium offered a full programme of in-depth panels, work groups and presentations. Jointly organised by the Health Services Research Centre (HSRC), SingHealth International Collaboration Office (ICO) and SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute (SDGHI), the event was held with representatives from 17 institutions across the region.

Prof Kenneth Kwek, Deputy Group CEO, Innovation & Informatics, SingHealth and CEO of Singapore General Hospital graced the Symposium as its Guest-of-Honour, delivering an address to highlight the significance of the regional gathering.

We’re here today to discuss the ongoing pandemic, and the research and the healthcare response in our region. All of us recognise fully that this pandemic has had a profound impact on everyone – our whole society, our economy, in all our countries” shared Prof Kwek, highlighting that the pandemic first and foremost had a significant impact on systems and processes in the healthcare sector. “It was far-sighted [of the collaborative partners] to recognise the importance of studying the data over the last few years, before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and now looking forward. And taking the lessons that we learnt during the pandemic and seeing how we can leverage this not just to cope but to improve our systems and improve our care moving forward.”

On the first day of the Symposium, clinical leaders shared high level learnings on the management of COVID-19 and the impact on health systems from four workstreams. The learnings drew on the results of the COVID-19 IMPACTS study, based on regional data contributed by collaborating partners from India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Singapore. Workstream topics covered were The Impact of COVID-19 on the 3 Bellwether Surgeries, Breast Cancer Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic, The Impact of COVID-19 on Colorectal Cancer in South East Asia and Surgical Systems Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The highly anticipated event is the first face-to-face meeting for co-investigators who participated in the: “COVID-19 IMPact and ACtion Taken in Surgery (COVID-19 IMPACTS)” study thataims to understand the collateral impact of COVID-19 on the surgical systems in Asia, and the response of the surgical community to this unprecedented threat. While collaborating for the past few years, communications had been by remote means due to travel restrictions brought on by the pandemic. The Chairpersons of the study, A/Prof Tan Hiang Khoon, Group Director, ICO and Director, SDGHI, and Prof Pierce Chow, Academic Vice Chair, Research, Surgery Academic Clinical Programme, SingHealth, chaired the Symposium.

"We understand intuitively that many of the effects [of the pandemic] can only be seen if we have both retrospective data to capture what happened before COVID, and prospective data captured during and hopefully after COVID” said Prof Tan, highlighting the importance of data collection from contributing partner health systems across the region. “A study like this can only be meaningful if we can bring about different partners from different countries…I want to personally thank all of our partners for embarking on this study in good faith and all in the common belief that we can do something for our patients and for our surgical community.”

The Symposium’s final day took on a forward-looking perspective to go beyond studying the impact of COVID-19 on surgical services, and instead focus on addressing other pressing global surgical challenges in the region. The day consisted of in-depth discussion on how we can collaborate to enhance surgical skills, strengthen the surgical systems, drive surgical innovation and facilitate patient empowerment.

“In contrast to how the world handled the SARS outbreak 17 years ago, the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic was very rapid due to scientific advances in the interim period. Within the first week of Jan 2020, the entire genome of the COVID-19 virus was sequenced by investigators on the ground in China and uploaded online, allowing the rest of the world to understand its cause and to rapidly develop an mRNA vaccine to counter it,” Prof Pierce Chow shared at the Symposium, emphasising how learnings from each disease outbreak strengthens our foundation and equips us with valuable knowledge to address the next threat. “Developments in science have been critically important in this journey – we are in a much better position today than in the past. All these could not have been done at this speed during the SARS outbreak.”

The inaugural Asian Surgical Network Symposium marks the beginning of a transition towards new collaboration opportunities within the Asian Surgical Network as the COVID-19 IMPACTS study comes to a close, with the aim of jointly examining additional pressing global health issues faced by the surgical services and systems in the region. The learnings from the study and the partnership forged in this collaboration bode well for our future efforts to improve the equity and quality of surgical care for our patients.