GILLIES ORATION - DISTANCE EDUCATION IN PLASTIC SURGERY

Gillies Oration is the most prestigious oration of Association of Plastic Surgeons of India and is delivered in the Annual Conference of the Association by a Past President. This year I was the orator and the topic I chose to deliberate upon was ‘Distance Education in Plastic Surgery’. Sir Harold Delf Gillies is considered to e the father of modern Plastic Surgery, though our speciality goes back to the great Indian sage and surgeon Sushruta, who practiced reconstructing cut noses from cheek flaps in 600 BC!

Though Distance Education became very popular during the lockdown that was imposed because of the pandemic, but the concept is almost 300 years old. Today it has become a vital tool for Continuing Medical Education but it has the potential of turning out to be valuable means of imparting medical knowledge to students in far flung medical institutions which lack adequate teaching faculty or facilities. Augmented Reality will soon teleport the best domain expert in a particular field of medicine to the remotest classrooms and thus offer geographical neutrality to education and training!

Plastic Surgery departments in government medical institutions are deluged with patients who require reconstructive surgery for trauma, burns, diseases and birth defects, So very little Aesthetic Surgery (Cosmetic Surgery) is taught and this has remained a grievance of most trainees. By distance education we hoped to fill this void and in the last 18 months succeeded to a great extent, By making our journal interactive, through YouTube channels and by designing an interactive lecture series complete with a set of MCQs after each lecture we have plans to take the services of the best mentors through Distance Education to every trainee desirous of sharpening his/her skills.