Report
Laparoscopy has become an important part of contemporary urogynaecology. With the recent advances in laparoscopy and increasing number of laparoscopic urogynaecological procedures performed, urogynaecologists have to overcome a lengthy and difficult learning curve in order to achieve a favourable restoration of pelvic floor anatomy.
With this in mind, we organized our first international Workshop on Advanced Laparoscopic Skills in Urogynaecology, which took place at Faculty of Medicine, University of Maribor, Slovenia, on June 22nd and 23rd 2018. A two-day workshop started with short lectures, delivered by our outstanding team of lecturers: Christian Phillips (United Kingdom), Natalia Price (United Kingdom), Simon Jackson (United Kingdom), Mija Blaganje (Slovenia), Mateja Rakuša (Slovenia), Lidija Kocbek (Slovenia), and Igor But (meeting chair, Slovenia). Lectures covered the topics of comprehensive anatomy of the pelvis, different laparoscopic techniques in urogynaecology, tips and tricks for laparoscopic surgery in urogynaecology, and intra- and postoperative morbidity of urogynaecological laparoscopic surgery. They were made as interactive as possible with abundance of video material and use of a 3D projector for demonstration of pelvis anatomy. Lectures were followed by a video session and practical work, which consisted of anatomy session using interactive Anatomage tables and hands-on advanced laparoscopic skills training using pelvis models. On day two, we started with POP quiz, followed by a practical challenge for the participants: they had to perform a laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy on a pelvis model with proper suture placement. Needless to say, the participants did an excellent job.
To sum up, we are very proud that we were able to organize an international workshop that enabled the participants to broaden their knowledge in pelvic anatomy and urogynaecological laparoscopy and practice their laparoscopic skills. We would like to thank our lecturers and trainers for their collaboration and our participants for their attendance. We are looking forward to our next Workshop on Advanced Laparoscopic Skills in Urogynaecology, which is going to take place in 2020.