Editor's Letter

What a wonderful week we all spent in the Hague in June! The annual meeting was a whirlwind of enlightening talks, abstract presentations that made us marvel at the quality of research, and, equally importantly, meeting friends, colleagues, and mentors worldwide. I am sure those of us who joined virtually also benefitted immensely from the cornucopia of talks on offer! Returning to my routine world has proven difficult for me personally, and I can’t wait to relive the enriching experiences next year in Singapore.

This issue of the Spotlight is dedicated to our annual meeting. We hope that reading the succinct summaries of the wonderful talks and presentations will motivate you to watch the full videos of the presentations on offer. We start off with a piece by Dr. Catherine Hudson on the evocative Presidential address of our beloved IUGA President, Dr. Fred Milani. We are grateful for the immaculate vision of our new President, and we look forward to our organization growing from strength to strength in the coming years. This is followed by a summary of the inspiring keynote lecture by Esther Vergeer, the Dutch former professional wheelchair tennis player, by Dr. Hudson. Esther Vergeer was given a standing ovation after her talk, and the summary will help remember the most motivational parts of her lecture.

Next up is the synopsis of the timely Ulf Ulmstem lecture on measuring prolapse given by Dr. Matthew Barber, written by yours truly. Measuring the success of prolapse surgery has proved to be an evolving topic, and Dr. Barber has superbly guided us toward the best approach that benefits our patients the most.  Dr. Hudson then throws light on the interesting balloon debate on uterine descent. The balloon debate has always been one of the highlights of our annual meetings and one that we all look forward to. Dr. Kazibe then follows with a succinct summary of the critical topics covered by our esteemed speakers in the Global Health Session…women’s health needs to be a priority, as underlined by the inspiring and timely lectures in the session. We end this section with the synopsis by Dr. Maherah of the discussion on decision-making for treatment. Patients are at the center of all that we do, and this session aptly highlighted the various challenges in the process of decision-making regarding treatment.

We then follow with an overview of the best abstracts presented at the conference: Dr. Hudson wrote the best overall abstract, and Dr. Maherah wrote the best abstract in basic science and by a physician in training.  Also, there was a very interesting symposium on the journey of a product, a summary of which has been penned by Dr. Kazibe.

We end the newsletter with summaries of the allied health session (by Dr. Carboni) and the fellows, trainees, and early career professionals’ session by Dr. Priyanka Krishnaswamy.

Lastly, yours truly has penned a piece on all the award winners at the meeting.

As you can see, this issue of the newsletter provides a comprehensive overview of what the Hague meeting had to offer. We hope that the newsletter motivates you to watch the full videos of the session on the IUGA app. I thank my committee members for their hard work in bringing a snapshot of the annual meeting to all our readers! And as always, I am grateful to our readers for their constant support!