At the recent Fall meeting in Chicago, coinciding with the 2006 ACS Clinical Congress, the SPSA Board of Governors approved a new draft of policies for its Traveling Fellowship Program. The project was temporarily shelved for the last two years due to financial constraints. With the availability of funding brought about by the energetic fundraising activities of the SPSA leadership this year, the Society, at its July Annual Convention meeting in Long Beach, California, tentatively approved resumption of its sponsorship of surgeons from the Philippines to come to the United States to learn newer advances in different surgical fields. The fellow’s stint would end to coincide with the October ACS’ Annual Congress.

Ralph Zaragoza, M.D. FACS, Chair of the Traveling Fellow Program, drafted the new policy and procedures with the help of Hernan Reyes, M.D. FACS, the Society’s founding President. In the original draft, aspirants of the program should come from medical centers in the Philippines, must be fully trained surgeons, recommended by their departments, and must return to the Philippines after their fellowship stint in the United States. Fellows of the SPSA would arrange for the rotation at various hospitals in the United States, for 2 to 6 months, with the Society footing the cost of intra-state travel, health and malpractice insurance, a small monthly stipend and for other costs associated with the Fellow’s lodging. It was also proposed for the Society to pay for the international fare of the Fellow. 

All the proposals in the draft were approved by the Board, except for the international travel expenses, and the that in lieu of rotations at several hospitals in different states for different specialties, the program would offer specific fields of study, interests, or procedures, such as laparoscopic surgery. The host surgeon from the Society could arrange the rotation with an institution, a hospital or medical center, or with another surgeon. Informed of the Board’s decision, Dr. Zaragoza, a past president of the Society, stated that the revised draft was satisfactory and promised he would start communicating with various medical centers in the Philippines to inform them of the SPSA’s program. – Ed Quiros, M.D. FACS