Greeting

Congress President,

The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Surgery of the Hand

Norimasa Iwasaki, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine
and Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University

The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Surgery of the Hand (JSSH) will be held on Thursday, April 18 and Friday, April 19, 2019 in the Sapporo Convention Center. This is only the second time that the Annual Meeting will have been held in Hokkaido, following the 36th Annual Meeting in 1993 organized by Dr. Seiichi Ishii, a former member of my own Department of Orthopaedic Surgery of Hokkaido University who was then Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Sapporo Medical University. I am the third alumnus of this department to serve as president of the Annual Meeting, following Dr. Toshihiko Hagino (then Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Yamagata University).

In the spirit of the founding philosophy of Hokkaido University, the main theme of the meeting is “Be Ambitious, Be Innovative.” We also have three subthemes: “Hand Surgery as Musculoskeletal Surgery,” “New Frontiers in Hand Surgery,” and “Young Hand Surgeons Making Great Strides.” Symposia and panel discussions will be arranged around topics associated with these themes.

There have been claims that Japan’s international presence in the life sciences, including medicine, has been diminishing in recent years. Innovative medical treatments are dependent on scientific development. Throughout its long history, Japanese hand surgery has played a leading global role in terms of both clinical practice and research, with the JSSH at its center. For Japanese hand surgery to exert even greater international leadership in future, it is essential that members of the younger generation be successful in both clinical practice and research. It is my strong hope that this Annual Meeting will provide an educational opportunity on this subject.

The Department of Orthopaedic Surgery of Hokkaido University is hosting the JSSH Annual Meeting for the first time. All the staff of my department, as well as its alumni among the JSSH membership, feel it a great honor that the 62nd Annual Meeting of the JSSH will be held in Hokkaido’s capital of Sapporo, where the frontier spirit is still strong. I look forward to seeing many of you there.