Symposium & workshop on urogynaecology held

Islamabad
The Department of Urology & Renal Transplantation of Rawalpindi Medical College, in collaboration with the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department of RMC, arranged a symposium along with international live operative workshop on urogynaecology here.
Nearly 200 urologists and gynaecologists from all over the country attended the symposium and live training workshop that concluded late in the evening on Monday. The majority of attendees were from the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
Senator Begum Najma Hameed was the chief guest at the symposium while Principal RMC Professor Muhammad Umar was the guest of honour. Head of Department of Urology & Renal Transplantation at RMC Professor Mumtaz Ahmed facilitated the proceedings of the symposium and international live workshop that was telecasted from Italy.
The symposium was second of a series as the RMC initiated continued medical education programme for updating the knowledge and skills of medical professionals relating to Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Department of Urology & Renal Transplantation last year by holding first symposium on the subject.
The theme of the symposium and live workshop was urinary incontinence in women and treatment protocols for the problem. The urinary incontinence can be defined as unintentional loss of urine or involuntary leakage of urine.
Studies reveal that urinary incontinence occurs more often in women as compared to men and pregnancy, childbirth and menopause may contribute to urinary incontinence in women. In particular, studies showed that some degree of urinary incontinence was reported by 25 per cent to 45 per cent of women. While urinary incontinence becomes more common with age, seven per cent to 37 per cent of women aged 20-39 reported experiencing some degree of incontinence. Having incontinence on a daily basis was noted by nine per cent to 39 per cent of women over 60.
In his welcome address in the inaugural session of the symposium, Professor Mumtaz said this kind of training would help to improve services in the new specialty of Urogynaecology. He informed the participants that he was running the urogynaecology clinic at Benazir Bhutto Hospital and Holy Family Hospital for the last one year.
He said that organising joint academic activity has provided an opportunity to health professionals to discuss and share the experiences with regard to complications of Gynae and Urology. He said the aim of Urogynaecology practice is to improve the care of patients with Urogynaecology problems in collaboration with other care providers. He said purpose of the symposium was to take further steps for the development of specialty of Urogynaecology in public sector hospitals so that urologists and gynaecologists can have sufficient knowledge and expertise to deal with these patients in a better way.
The chief guest also addressed the participants and informed them that she visited Holy Family Hospital and Benazir Bhutto Hospital on a number of occasions. She said that she was more than happy with the health services being rendered by the health experts at the two hospitals.
Speaking on the occasion, Professor Umar said the symposium would provide participants an endeavour of international standard and the activity would help a lot to inform, promote and globalise outstanding technological innovation, knowledge and research. He said the live workshop would especially help the young doctors to make an early debut on the national and international stages and will also open gateway and build a bridge between the Urologists and Gynaeclogiests of Pakistan by sharing their experiences.
After inaugural session, as many as four live surgical procedures related to minimally invasive treatment of female urinary incontinence was telecasted from Barbagli Institute Arezzo Italy, a well reputed hospital in Italy to train the young doctors on use of modern techniques to treat urinary incontinence in women.