The Central European Educational Center for Arthroscopy and the 4th Shoulder Symposium

The Central European Educational Center (CEEC) was established in 2008 following many years of cooperation in the organization of educational events between the Orthopaedic department of the České Budějovice Hospital and DePuy Mitek Czech Republic.

The CEEC project has several objectives, which include the promotion of mutual cooperation in the organization of not for profit educational arthroscopy events, the establishment and maintenance of ties with international arthroscopy facilities, cooperation with these facilities in the organization of professional arthroscopy events, and finally, the promotion of new approaches to arthroscopy among professionals.

Within the CEEC project, all specialized activities are carried out by the hospital (Drs. Pavel Sadovský and David Musil), while DePuy Mitek is responsible for organizational, promotional, and marketing activities pertaining to the educational events.

On April 23 and 24, 2009, the 4th Shoulder Symposium was held in České Budějovice. The symposium was organized by DePuy Mitek Czech Republic in cooperation with the Orthopaedic department of the České Budějovice Hospital. Now a regular event, the symposium is held every two years and represents the largest single-topic arthroscopy conference in the Czech Republic. This year’s symposium was the first to be organized by the CEEC.

A total of 155 participants from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Austria, and Poland attended the event, as did 17 guest lecturers from all over Europe. The symposium took place over two days and was held in English.

The program for each day was divided into two parts. As part of the morning program, live operations were performed in the operating theatres of the České Budějovice Hospital and were broadcast to the congress centre. This year, symposium participants could watch operations performed by both Czech and foreign lecturers, including Dr. Leuzinger of Switzerland, Dr. Unger of Austria, Dr. Van Raebroeckx of Belgium, Dr. Poberaj of Slovenia, Dr. Sahni from the United Kingdom, and Drs. Nepraš, Sadovský, Musil and Paša from the Czech Republic. The afternoon sessions were devoted to specialized lectures, followed by a discussion period between lecturers and participants. The symposium provided all in attendance with an opportunity to learn about new developments in the field of arthroscopy and to apply their learnings in a practice workshop.

As in the past, this year’s symposium was very well received by both participants and lecturers, and represented a point of pride for the CEEC.