Exchange makes progress: Hepatobiliary Surgery and Manuscript Writing Symposium cosponsored by HepatoBiliary Surgery and Nutrition and AME Publishing Company
Hepatobiliary disease becomes an internationally hit issue due to its common occurrence. Doctors on this field are enthusiastic about progress made by others at home and aboard. Symposium is a good way for them to know anything new. Another effective way to timely follow any new discovery is reading international scientific articles. However, doctors especially those in non-English speaking countries, have great disparity in the ability to write manuscripts in English. This will undoubtedly hinder the worldwide academic exchange. Therefore, improving manuscript writing is urgently needed.
Aiming to strengthen experience sharing on hepatobiliary disease and improve scientific writing, the Hepatobiliary Surgery and Manuscript Writing Symposium was successfully held on September 25-26 in Beijing. This symposium was sponsored by Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH), HepatoBiliary Surgery and Nutrition (HBSN), AME Publishing Company and the University of Chicago-Department of Surgery. The two-day symposium mainly focused on three sessions, including Organ Transplantation, Hepatobiliary Diseases and Scientific Writing and Publication with many invited experts giving wonderful speeches. This series meeting has been successfully held for the fourth time.
Recently, organ donation and transplantation has witnessed historical changes since organ donation from executed prisoners was abolished and China determines to establish a transparent organ donation and transplantation system. The Organ Transplantation session began with the keynote speech from Jiefu Huang, former vice minister of Health of China and professor in PUMCH. Prof. Huang appreciated those who gave full support during the reform, including Prof. J. Michael Millis, one of the organizers of the symposium, from University of Chicago. And Prof. Huang was positive for the future development of organ donation in China. Following Prof. Huang was Prof. Haibo Wang, director of China Organ Transplant Response System. He briefly introduced the current status of organ donation and allocation in China through some data. When it came to living donor liver transplantation (LDLT), both Prof. Zhijun Zhu from Friendship Hospital in Beijing, China and Prof. Giuliano Testa from Baylor University Medical Center gave speeches. Prof. Zhu, a renowned expert in liver transplantation, shared a new technique called cross-auxiliary domino liver transplantation, which makes saving more lives with less donated livers come true while Prof. Testa mainly focused on the current development of LDLT in the United States (Figure 1).
In the session of Hepatobiliary Diseases, which was moderated by Prof. Yilei Mao, deputy chair in Chinese Society of Liver Surgeons and processor of PUMC, invited speakers generously shared their experiences and progress in basic and clinical study on hepatobiliary diseases. Prof. J. Michael Millis, director of University of Chicago, talked about how to manage colorectal cancers metastasis to the liver. Prof. Xin Lu from PUMCH summarized the experience of ALPPS for hepatocellular carcinoma performed in PUMCH and displayed a surgical video, which greatly aroused audience’ interest in this technique. Prof. Yuman Fong from City of Hope Medical Center made a speech on minimally invasive liver surgery while Prof. Fatin Adams, from Cummings School of Medicine in University of Calgary, introduced how to use capsule endoscopy to make diagnosis. Besides, Prof. Hongbin Zhang from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences demonstrated his new research results, pointing that GP73 can promote HCC development (Figure 2).
On the second day of the symposium, the Scientific Writing and Publication session opened. Ethics in scientific publications is of great importance. As an author published lots of scientific articles, Prof. J. Michael Millis was experienced enough to speak about this issue. He pinpointed some ethical issues that needed much attention before publication. As for how to get an idea to a published manuscript, both Prof. Yuman Fong and Prof. Jeffrey B. Matthews gave their opinions. Prof. Fong emphasized the important role a coach can play in this process because a coach owns a large amount of resource such as data and labors while Prof. Matthews illustrated this process by telling his own story vividly. As the editor-in-chief of Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Prof. Matthews also gave an overview of the peer review process. Many attendees were Chinese MD/PhD candidates and young doctors who have difficulties in writing English natively and the speech given by Prof. Arie Ariche from Chaim Sheba Medical Center was useful for their future writing. Prof. Ariche talked about how to prepare an English manuscript as a non-native English speaker by pointing out some common mistakes non-English speakers usually make. Prof. Hongqun Liu from University of Calgary also shared something about manuscript writing and submitting. But he shared it from the perspectives of an editor other than an author because he was the deputy editor of Liver International. He also told some interesting stories between authors and editors to help attendees know how to communicate better with editors. After his sharing, Founder & CEO of AME Publishing Company Daoyuan Wang took a paper published in Journal of Clinical Oncology as an example to demonstrated how to publish the retrospective study in top journal. In addition to scientific writing and publication, some academic missions were also discussed as the last part of this session. Prof. Giuliano Testa spoke about the value of an MBA degree in academic surgery while Prof. Jeffrey B. Matthews shared his thoughts on the role of a department chairman can play in academic surgery (Figure 3).
As Francis Bacon once said, “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man”. We believe that this symposium will lead to deeper thinking and future progress in organ transplantation, hepatobiliary diseases and scientific manuscript. We gave our heartfelt thanks to all the speakers and organizers for their great support and contribution to this symposium (Figure 4).
As a series meeting, this symposium will continue to be held in 2016. We warmly welcome your participation. You may contact us via email of HBSN journal.
Acknowledgements
None.
Footnote
Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.
