On September 3 - 7, 2019 in Madrid, Spain, the Department of General and Emergency Surgery (head of the Department - Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor V.V.  Kryzhevskiy)   took part in the 24th World Congress of the International Federation of Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders (IFSO). The IFSO is a surgical federation of 63 official national associations of bariatric surgeons and individual members.

The mission of the IFSO is to bring together global scientific, surgical and integrated health communities to disseminate knowledge, collaborate and establish universal standards of care for people with chronic obesity-related illnesses. The main goal of the IFSO is to optimize the treatment of patients with severe obesity, bringing together surgeons and related healthcare providers. The IFSO is committed to creating a global accreditation system for bariatric centers and individual surgeons.

Congress participants received 13 European CME credits, and 13 European CMEs also received participants of postgraduate courses.

Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education was represented by professor of the Department of General and Emergency Surgery, Doctor of Medical Sciences, laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine, Fellow of the International Academy of Medical Sciences Evgeny Kolesnikov (MD, PhD, DMedSc, FIMSA), who took part in numerous discussions of the different problems in bariatric surgery.

 During the congress, two interesting postgraduate courses were held: 1) 4th International Consensus Conference on Duodenal Switch and 2) Live Surgeries Course: Primary, Revisional, Endoscopic, Robotic and Complications.

Separate sessions and speeches concerned the following issues: - Innovations and contradictions in bariatric surgery; - Sleeve gastrectomy, positive and negative sides of the operation, complications and surgical technique; - BPD and Duodenal switch operations, indications, contraindications, complications and results and other important issues. Three video sessions of «live» surgery attracted the attention of many bariatric surgeons: Module One (a team of surgeons from the USA) : video broadcast of operations from the Pennsylvania, USA - conversion of sleeve gastrectomy in Duodenal Switch and conversion of sleeve gastrectomy in SADI operation with one anastomosis.            

Very interesting videos about the repeated operations using the robot were very interesting in patients who did not lose enough weight after bariatric procedures or gained weight in the postoperative period. In general, this forum was very useful for both young and experienced bariatric surgeons.