The history of Surgery Update is at once illuminating and illustrious. What began as an informal one day exercise has now become a mammoth programme lasting. It started with the objective of updating as well as revising the existing knowledge in Surgery, aimed specifically at the Postgraduate resident. Many postgraduates all over the country feel that they lack structured didactic inputs. Universities and colleges make genuine efforts to provide the same, but due to overwhelming clinical pressures didactic teaching takes the back seat. Learning is more by way of example, observation and inference and sometimes by discussion. The theoretical framework is left to be acquired by the postgraduate. But can an edifice be built without a sound foundation?

Surgery Update was born to redress this anomaly. In today’s scenario of multiple conferences and updates, it is difficult to imagine a time when these were few and far between. But a conference is not as useful to a postgraduate as the Update is, since it addresses the recent developments and analyses the experiences of different surgeons. We aim to fill in the gaps in knowledge, as well as facilitate revision.

We now have participants who have attended a series of updates starting as Post Graduates, and are now faculty or in successful practice.  The faculty for the scientific sessions came in good spirit for the cause of education, since we had no frills to offer. We had only one slide projector operated by one of our technicians who used to sit through the entire week. God forbid if he fell asleep or the projector broke down. But no, we had no mishaps. Now we have professional operators on double projection. We have video projection, multiple monitors and, for operative demonstrations, even large TV screens.

The most popular part of the Update that has remained unchanged over the years is the case discussion. This is an exercise that has received praise in all the evaluations. These come after another update special: the lunch. Over the years a carefully prepared and tasty lunch has been served albeit heavy. This may, perhaps, change to a more business like lunch in the future. We used to provide accommodation in the hostels – not luxurious but adequate. However, with the increased intake of students, hostel rooms are not available. Moreover, delegates now expect a certain minimum of comfort, which may not be available in the hostels at short notice.

It is the rising tide of Surgical Technology that has changed the face of modern surgery. We, the organizers of Surgery Update, had to respond to new developments because today’s trainee surgeon has to face this challenge. The pendulum has swung from bigger the better to small is beautiful. The advent of transurethral prostate surgery heralded this change and even as percutaneous procedures were being perfected, laparoscopy has taken surgeons as well as patients by storm. We demonstrated the first retropubic prostatectomy and total thyroidectomy live. The procedures were transmitted from the theatre on to a large screen and the two-way communication ensured interaction between delegates and surgeons. When this was done for the first time, it took a whole night to set up the facilities. Today it is passe and laparoscopic procedures done by outstanding surgeons are shown.

The focus is still the Post Graduate, in the sense that while established procedures are shown, the goal is to show what is accepted and not what is probable. 

Commitment to the cause of medical education by the members of the Department of Surgery is the reason why this exercise has continued for so many consecutive years – the longest for any such exercise in the country. Successive Heads of Department without fail have considered it their duty to continue this activity year after year, and the faculty has risen as one to see that this happens despite overwhelming financial pressures.  Organizing Secretaries volunteered to shoulder this awesome responsibility.