Alwyn D'Souza
Dear Friends and colleagues,
I was honoured and delighted to take on the Presidential position on 17th September during the Nice 2021 EAFPS annual meeting. It is a huge privilege to serve you as the Academy President.
It gives me great pleasure to write to you personally and set out my vision for the academy, with the support of my executive board members and governance leaders. First, I want to thank you for rendering your support by choosing me as your President. We all must recognise that EAFPS has evolved into a truly democratic institution particularly in the last few years. This is reflected in our new byelaws and electoral process.
EAFPS is now a global force in facial plastic surgery. The 3 pillars of EAFPS are education, training, and accreditation, with a goal to disseminate knowledge in Facial Plastic Surgery. We will therefore strive to improve our existing educational machine with further content in the online video library, conferences, webinars, courses, and “Facial Plastic Surgery” Journal. May I invite you to submit appropriate teaching material which can be uploaded to the website to help improve the existing high standard content. Equally I encourage you to submit your research work to our journal for publication based on the peer review process. The journal will soon introduce a “Crowd Review” process which will consist of several reviewers in their special interest areas. I welcome you to join the “Crowd Review” team of reviewers if you have not already done so.
The recently established junior’s section of EAFPS is making a mark and is working on collaborative research projects across Europe and beyond. We are also keen on launching a mentorship programme for our junior members. I would like our senior members to support this and join the mentorship scheme. The details of the mentorship scheme will be available soon on the website.
I have no doubt that the future of facial plastic surgery depends on our ability to train our young surgeons. Our fellowship programmes are improving year by year, and with the introduction of feedback pathways that we are working on, we will progress further. There will be a change in the fellowship application process with specific timelines and standardised selection and assessment criteria. It is my desire to support our fellows more as the financial situation in the Academy improves. We also intend to offer fellowships to the international applicants through appropriate channels that are at a discussion stage with the International Federation.
The governance team is key to smooth functioning of EAFPS activities. The team needs to have energetic, enthusiastic, and keen members with new ideas. There will be a progressive change of the governance structure early in the new year. My personal vision is to see a fair representation across the board from both female and male surgeons including surgeons in training.
In the last three years EAFPS surgeons have reshaped the practice of rhinoplasty with the introduction of preservation rhinoplasty techniques. EAFPS will offer further training in all areas of facial plastic surgery with the introduction of new, organised short training schemes, to be published very soon in addition to existing fellowship programmes.
Without taking more of your time, I thank you, for all you have done for our Academy and Speciality as members of EAFPS. My special thanks to Fazil Apaydin who has left the executive board after immense work that has transformed the Academy, and Hesham Saleh for leading us through a turbulent pandemic period with unparalleled mastery and dedication. I also welcome Abdulkadir Goksel to the executive board.
I wish you all a great festive season and hope you will get some time to rest and enjoy the company of your near and dear ones.
I look forward to seeing you in September 2022 in Łódź , Poland at our annual meeting if not earlier.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year: All the very best for 2022.
Alwyn D’Souza
President
European Academy of Facial Plastic Surgery