Participation in the 2023 KSES – SECEC/ESSSE Exchange Travelling Fellowship Program

Dear KSES friends,

It has been an honor and a pleasure to experience your hospitality in Korea during the KSES – SECEC traveling fellowship from October, 20 to November, 5 this year. This opportunity for Koray Şahin and me will be cherished forever.
After our arrival in Seoul, we went to Daegu for the KSES – Gyeongsang branch congress. The welcome dinner (including drinks) was a great event. We met several future hosts, and enjoyed the Korean barbecue to the fullest. The next day, with professor Doo Han Kim we had a tour through Daegu and were able to give a presentation at the congress. The next day, we visited different hospitals; I got the opportunity to see a complex elbow arthroplasty revision amongst others at the Keimyung University Dongsan Hospital with professor Chul Hyun Cho.
That evening we left for a long stay in Seoul; however, as it is a huge city with more inhabitants than my whole country, the term ‘city’ might be misplaced. The visits to professors Young-Kyu Kim, Kyu Hak Jung, Hyung Seok Song, In-Ho Jeon and Jae-Hoo Lee were good opportunities to share from their knowledge and discuss similarities and differences between our practices. Every evening was accompanied with a Korean dinner – all were highly delicious. The weekend encompassed a DMZ and Han river tour, so we felt a bit like tourists. Especially when we were dressed as kings in a hanbok at the Changdeokgung palace.

The next week I visited professors Jin-Young Park, Joo Han Oh, Yon-Sik Yoo and Yong Girl Rhee; great surgeons with lots of experience, and again they hosted us with – again – delightful dinners. For the weekend, we headed to the tropical island of Jeju for the congress, combined with sightseeing with dr. Kyung Hun Kim and Tomoyuki Mochizuki, who we previously met during a welcome dinner in Tokyo. We received amazing plaques as physical memories for the KSES president, professor Jae Chul Yoo. This plaque already has a prominent place at home, and also in my heart and memories.

A short transfer to Seoul concluded our visit to Korea as we had to depart to Europe again. However, the experiences will stay. It was great to see the surgical skills of our hosts and their teams, and to discuss their views on different shoulder and elbow topics. For example, the SCR surgery is not yet frequently used in my country, so the chance to see it performed with different techniques is perfect. The different kinds of 3D printed molds are great too; availability in Europe would be really useful.
Maybe even more important, are the personal relations we had during the fellowship. Hopefully, these bonds will make future cooperation possible so patient care will prosper all over the world.
 

 

Ante Prkić, MD, PhD
Northwest Clinics Alkmaar, the Netherlands