The welcome function
At the faculty welcome function of the Japanese Shoulder Society in Tokyo, October 2017.
What the Japanese Shoulder Society is
The Japanese Shoulder Society, usually shortened to JSS, is the national body in Japan for surgeons and researchers whose work is concentrated on the shoulder. Like the shoulder societies organised in other countries, it exists to collect and share what its members are learning, to set out where the published evidence currently sits, and to run an annual scientific meeting at which that work is presented and discussed. Japan has a long record of contribution to shoulder surgery and shoulder imaging, so the JSS meeting draws interest from outside Japan as well.
A scientific meeting of this kind is built around presented research. Members submit papers, the submissions are reviewed, and accepted work is delivered in short sessions with time for questions from the floor. Alongside the submitted papers, meetings normally invite faculty from other countries to give longer talks on subjects the organising committee wants covered in more depth, and to take part in panel and case discussions.
What being faculty involves
Faculty are the invited speakers and session chairs at a meeting rather than the delegates who attend to listen. The invitation carries an obligation to present on a nominated subject, to chair sessions, and to join the case discussions where differences of opinion between surgeons are aired in front of the room. Travelling to teach at another country's meeting also means being present for the rest of the programme, which is one of the more efficient ways for a surgeon to find out how a particular problem is being approached elsewhere.
The welcome function sits at the front of the programme and has a practical purpose. Invited speakers are often meeting for the first time, or renewing an acquaintance from previous years, and the conversations that begin at a function like this one are frequently where collaborations, fellowship arrangements and multi-centre research projects start. Very little of that happens in the lecture theatre itself.
Related information
- Our post on the faculty function at the same meeting
- Our post on the talk on preventing infection given in Tokyo
- Research carried out alongside the clinical practice
- Publications