SA trauma expert to head World Body

Abstract

In a major boost for Third World surgical training, Wits University surgery department chief and trauma surgery ‘guru’, Professor Ken Boffard, has been elected President of the International Society of Surgery.
Boffard is the first president of the society to come from Africa in its 110-year existence and the first specialist trauma surgeon ever to be elected to this position. He has detailed plans to extend critically needed generalist surgical training in Third World countries, much of it building on educational initiatives he helped initiate.
Acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on trauma surgery and critical care (visiting professor at universities on five continents and member of 35 related professional associations and committees), Boffard was upbeat in outlining the goals that the new position will help him achieve.
He told Izindaba that, in surgical terms, the world had become divided into the ‘rich haves (super specialists) and the poor have-nots (general surgeons)’, with the former preferring to attend their specialty congresses exclusively.