The ASPU Congress of 2010

   Istanbul is the seventh meeting point of ASPU – the Asian Society for Paediatric Urology. The first six biannual meetings were held in India where the ASPU was established, and designed in the context of workshops. The Istanbul Congress is a big step for the ASPU in its movement out of the subcontinent and into the Asia minor. The format of the congress is different for one good reason: it will allow us not only more time and space to discuss the present issues of paediatric urology, but also prepare for the future of paediatric urology in the “South” – Asia, Africa, Latin America and Australasia and beyond. Coming ASPU meetings will surely invite more  interesting concepts.
 
There are immense challenges for the ASPU: long distances from Turkey to Japan need to bridged, and diversities from Mongolia to Sri Lanka to come to terms with, to mention a few. Asian societies and institutions have been evolving at a dazzling pace, as we are spinning towards a new bipolar world. The demographics and infrastructure of Southern countries pose problems which only professionals on the ground can fully appreciate, the dynamics of which also provide energising elements for our own fields of surgery. ASPU proposes to create the network to open and upkeep the pathways that patients and paediatric surgeons and urologists alike can reach out to experience and excellence.

A CD-rom of the Progress in Paediatric Urology has been included in the congress documents.The Progress is the official publication of the WOFSPU – World Federation of Societies for Paediatric Urology and the Asian Society for Paediatric Urology, and the first periodical of paediatric urology in the English language. The contents of the first 10 volumes are a testimony to the collaboration that has been achieved since 1998 within the framework of the WOFSPU.

Many pediatric urologists will remember 2010 as the year of the 1st World Congress of Pediatric Urology in San Francisco – dubbed the 1st World War in Paediatric Urology. Others will know that the ideal to bring together paediatric urologists at a genuinely global forum will continue to be represented by the World Federation of Societies for Paediatric Urology, and that at least one Society, the Asian Society for Paediatric Urology, stood up for the independence and integrity of paediatric urology. I believe those present at the ASPU & WOFSPU 2010 Congress are among the discerning and devoted.

Have a memorable time in Istanbul, see and hear what Asians have to say to paediatric urologists about children in need of their care.  

Şeref Etker, MD