The South African Foot Surgeons’ Association (SAFSA) is a society of South African orthopaedic surgeons with a special interest in the medical and surgical management of foot and ankle pathologies. We have quarterly meetings for presentations, topic discussions and difficult case presentations. SAFSA organises a foot and ankle congress biennially, with international guest speakers. A foot and ankle instructional course is presented at every third SAOA congress by the society. The association promotes research and education in foot and ankle surgery.
From The Foot of the bed:
The South African foot surgeons Association (SAFSA) has grown its membership to 55 active members. There are a number of newly qualified consultants becoming more interested and active in the sub- specialty. Three surgeons have recently returned from overseas fellowships and are already active in the society.At the conference in Durban, 2019, the Biennial SAFSA conference was included in the SAOA combined meeting. An excellent faculty from Boston (Chris Di Giovanni), Canada (Mark Glazebrook) and Singapore (Chris Pearce), including local faculty, presented a great congress. Positive feedback was received from attendees.
The British Orthopaedic foot and Ankle Society have awarded a prize (free registration) for the best South African research project to be presented at their annual meeting in November. SAFSA will be sponsoring the travel. Dr Paulo Ferrao, Dr Andrew Strydom and Prof Saragas recently travelled to China as faculty for Steps2Walk the humanitarian organization founded by Mark Myerson. They performed live surgery, ran a cadaver lab and assessed many underprivileged patients in rural China. A similar event was held in Windhoek, Namibia in November This was hosted by Dr. Jacques Jonck, Dr Graham McCollum and Mark Myerson, among others. 12 South African surgeons took the time out from their busy schedules to spend a week with the faculty and Dr Myerson learning from the lab, the clinical cases and live surgery In conclusion, I would like to thank the exco (Dr Naas Terblanche, Dr Paulo Ferrao, Dr I Stead) and all SAFSA members for their support and dedication throughout the year.
– Dr Graham McCollum