The 68th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists

Hybrid Meeting for the 68th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists
Chairman: Professor Kazuyoshi Hirota
(Department of Anesthesiology, Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine)

We have decided to organize a hybrid meeting, which is combined a meeting at the venue with an online meeting, for the 68th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists as we cannot anticipate the end of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The meeting will be held in Kobe for two days on June 3 (Thu.) and 4 (Fri.), 2021, a day shorter than the original schedule. From June 5 (Sat.), we will release all the contents of the online lectures and also some of the recorded sessions which will be presented at the venue in Kobe.
Speakers who have been invited from overseas may or may not be able to enter Japan as the COVID-19 situation differs in each country and is also changing on a moment-to-moment basis. Given these circumstances, the program may be cancelled shortly before the meeting. Thus, we have decided not to invite any speakers from overseas. Instead, we will ask the speakers from overseas to send their video files in advance and distribute the contents online, as we did this year for the 67th annual meeting. To avoid the three Cs (closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings) at the venue, we will reduce the scale of the meeting from 10,000 to 3000–5000 participants. Poster session will be presented online in principle. We will only provide 3 courses (infection control, medical ethics and medical safety) certificated by Japanese Medical Specialty Board at the venue, and there will be no refresher course with the field of anesthesiology. Thus, congestion at the stations of Port Liner will be reduced in addition to at the meeting venue. The 68th annual meeting may only be held online depending on the COVID-19 pandemic situation. We appreciate your understanding.
This will be the first hybrid meeting for JSA. Our theme will be “Role of anesthesiologists for the superaging society,” as planned. I am preparing for Chairman’s projects and other working groups are also currently working hard on their programs. For the Chairman’s project, I have selected the work style of female anesthesiologists as a theme. Although the work style reform has been recently suggested, the percentage of female doctors in anesthesiology is characteristically higher than in other medical fields. We will invite Ms. Seiko Noda, a member of the House of Representatives, who has been supporting activities of women’s employment by promoting the use of telecommuting even before the COVID-19 pandemic. She will present a keynote lecture and also participate in the symposium online. I hope you will watch her lecture and reflect upon a better work style for you.
For the 68th annual meeting, we have attempted to conduct a session of Medically Challenging Cases, well known in the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) meeting. Although the abstracts and presentations must be prepared in English, you can apply with only one case report. As clinicians, you will have the opportunity to learn about many important aspects from the different case reports shared. We have decided to restart to this case report session, although it will be conducted in English version. In addition, we have decided that this session will be presented at the venue under the auspices of the Chairman. I look forward to your applications.
As a part of the meeting will be distributed online, we request the speakers of the online meeting to submit lecture files in advance. Similarly, for programs conducted at the venue, we may ask the speakers to submit video files in advance, just in case. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. However, we request your cooperation to smoothly conduct the meeting and appreciate your understanding.
The 67th academic meeting was only held online, while the 68th academic meeting will be held in a hybrid-style. We hope to gradually return to an ordinary meeting while continuing to reap the advantages of an online meeting. I hope participants will gain useful insights regarding the medical practice in the future.
We look forward to your participation.