From 16:00-18:00 on September 4th, the Sino-German Spine Surgery Video Conference has ended successfully in the Meeting Center. The conference was jointly held by Dongguan TCM Hospital,

Dongguan People Hospital and Prof. Michael Mayer-the former President of the German Spine Society and European Spine Society. The Vice President of Dongguan TCM Hospital ZHANG ZiYao and the Director of the Department of Orthopaedics LU GuoLiang also joined the conference with the Director Lu hosting.

Sino-German Spine Surgery Video Conference Room

The Vice President of Dongguan TCM Hospital ZHANG ZiYao is delivering a welcoming address

On behalf of the Dongguan TCM Hospital, the Vice President ZHANG ZiYao expressed the warmest welcome and greetings to all the specialists and colleagues as well as thanks to all the fellow hospitals for their support for so long. He also mentioned that Dongguan TCM Hospital working as the organizer will try their best to make the video conferences a platform to learn from each other, strengthen the relationship and develop ourselves together. 

The Director of Department at Dongguan TCM Hospital is hosting the conference

Right after, Prof. Mayer started his lecture of “Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Learning Curves”

Prof. Mayer used the Forgetting Curve and the Wright’s Law to help explain the Learning Curve. To quote the philosopher Aristotle‘Medical men do not seem to be made by a study of textbooks’, it emphasizes the importance of practice. He also mentioned The ‘Kantian ideal’ in medicine:‘Act so that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other.’

However, it exists the violation of the Kantian ideal. Medical expertise like the knowledge, physical abilities, and skills must be learned by practicing on patients, which will lead to a higher risk for patients at beginning of the learning curve and later patients benefit.

Prof. Mayer also pointed out the psychological effects of learning through the Dunning-Kruger Effect. According to the survey monkey questionnaire from the German Spine Society and the European Spine Society, we could learn that mental fitness and stress resistance are also important characteristics for defining an excellent surgeon besides surgical skills.

In Conclusion, a learning curve is influenced by talent, personality, and self-confidence besides technical learning abilities. Although the Kantian ideal may not be fully achieved, continuing to develop medical simulations like talent screening, skill training and skill updates and enhancing support of medical learners might help to solve the problem.

Afterward, Prof. Mayer discussed with the colleagues when the young surgeon could perform the surgery alone and how to evaluate their surgical performance. Prof. Mayer said that in Germany, they will use questionnaires to investigate the preoperative condition of patients and multiple follow-ups after surgery to measure the surgeon’s surgical performance. The ways to evaluate whether a young surgeon can perform the surgery independently are mainly their superiors’ evaluation, combined with the postoperative situation and the clinical effect.

Dr LI JianWen from Dongguan People Hospital shared cases of minimally invasive treatment of isthmic lumbal spondylolisthesis with narrow intervertebral space. Dr Li share different surgical options and their pros and cons. Meanwhile, they choose Bilateral MIS-TLIF with microscopic assistance by analyse the case and purpose of the surgery(decompression, reduction and fusion). Dr Li also share about the pooled complication rate for TLIF. He mentioned that it happens the interbody cage migration with mostly the reasons of insufficient intervertebral space, endplate structure damage, osteoporosis and wrong direction of cage implantation. In conclusions, in case of lumbosacral lythic spondylolisthesis, a bilateral traversing and exiting nerve roots decompression is a safer option prior to performing the deformity reduction and fixation.

Dr. YE LinQiang from the Spine Surgery Branch of Orthopaedics Department, Dongguan TCM Hospital , gave a case sharing of lumbar spinal stenosis. Regarding the most suitable surgical option for this case, Prof. Mayer also expressed his approval of surgical plan chosen by their team.

Director LI SongBo of the Spine Surgery Branch of Orthopaedics, Department at Dongguan People Hospital, and Prof. Mayer had an in-depth discussion on surgical options for different spinal diseases.

At the end of the conference, LU GuoLiang, Director of the Orthopedics Department at Dongguan TCM Hospital, thanked again Prof. Mayer for his selfless sharing and wonderful lecture. He also expressed his expectation that Prof. Mayer would come to Dongguan TCM Hospital for academic exchange.