My visit to 15th International Congress on Shoulder and Elbow Surgery 2023 in Rome

The group travel for the International Canine Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (ICSES) Congress was the first major event to resume after the organization was completely shut down from the effects of Covid-19 in 2020, which lasted over three years. I had the pleasure of serving as the Travel Secretary for the 15th ICSES congress 2023 in Rome, Italy. I was excited about the prospect of organizing a group trip without the impact of Covid-19 for the first time in a long time, but I was also worried that it might be too big.
 

 
In order to prepare for this trip, I had a meeting with Prof. Jae Chul Yoo on January 2, 2023, the day after New Year's Day, and we discussed a lot together. Although the conference will be held in Rome, it is a very famous tourist destination, so most of the participants will have experienced it, so the most difficult task was to select a new and attractive destination where many people can join together. After much deliberation, we decided to head to the south of Italy, and our final destinations were Sicily and Malta.
With this year's conference being longer than previous years, we had to think hard about scheduling our travel to the conference to leave at the end of the conference. Despite the lengthy itinerary of the conference trip (5 days and 6 nights in Sicily + optional 3 days and 4 nights in Malta), we received a lot of interest and support, with 37 people finally signing up to participate.
 
 
On September 8, the ICSES congress ended in Rome, and we boarded the plane to Sicily. Our first day in Sicily consisted of a city tour of Palermo and a trip to the medieval city of Erice. It was amazing to see how the streets of Palermo looked like a recreation of scenes from the movie “The Godfather”. The second day was spent exploring Cefalu Beach, the setting for the movie “Cinema Paradiso”. The beach at Cefalu was so beautiful and laid-back that I felt like I was watching a scene from a movie. After lunch, we traveled to Taormina, where we unpacked at our hotel and toured the largest ancient Roman amphitheater in Sicily. The next day, after touring the city of Catania, we went for a swim at Isola Bella, which was also the location of the movie “the Big Blue”. On the fourth day, we visited the Etna volcano, one of the highlights of our Taormina trip. I'm still amazed that I was able to go there, especially since it's a whopping 2945 meters high and is known to be the highest active volcano in Europe. The next morning, the 15 members of the Malta tour said goodbye to the Sicily trip team and headed to the airport, as they had a flight to catch. The four days in Malta were a great way to unwind from all the traveling, along with the Korean food I hadn't had in a while. We were also able to take advantage of the beautiful Mediterranean scenery and water sports.
 
 
After about 13 days long, fun, and exhausting days (if included the trip to Malta), we all returned home exhausted, but I was happy to have had the opportunity to travel for the first time with several societies I love and respect, as well as our family. Preparing for and leading this congress group trip was an eye-opening experience and a reminder that the more we love KSES society, the more we need to participate in them. I will never forget my gratitude to Chairman Jae chul Yoo and all the professors who were with me until the end, who were with me with a smile on their faces, encouraged me, and helped me a lot, even though there were many shortcomings. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, and the SMC families for their support and keeping me from falling down whenever I was struggling.

Jeung Yeol Jeong, MD
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hallym University Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital, Medical College of Hallym University, Republic of Korea