Dear Member
On behalf of the SASREG Committee, we wish to thank you for your membership to our Society and helping us to reach our goals for our sub-discipline and field of interest.
To all our new members, welcome to like-minded colleagues in a wonderful field of Medicine!
Both the sub divisions within SASREG, namely Reproductive Medicine and Gynaecological Endoscopy are very active in planning what promises to be an exciting 2018-2019, adding more value to your membership than ever before.
We had a Board meeting in Cape Town this weekend and we would like to update you on some of the important issues discussed.
For the interest of those members only involved in either Reproductive Medicine or Endoscopy, you can read what is of interest to you.
- General matters
- Reproductive Medicine
- Gynaecological Endoscopy
GENERAL MATTERS
Dr Thabo Matsaseng is a Board member and has recently been appointed to the WHO and is leaving us for a year to undertake this important task in Geneva. His seat on the board will not be filled as he will still be actively involved in Female Health. We wish him and his family all the best.
Membership fees
Turners Secretariat will send out the 2018 membership fees according to categories.
Please also ensure that we have your contact details updated. We will also send out notices of important conferences on behalf of other societies with which SASREG is affiliated.
Sub Committee activities feedback
You will receive an overview of the activities of the different sub committees for the past year as well as information of planned activities together with your remittance.
Please comment on any activities of which you would like more information on or would like to be involved with.
Secretarial Services
Turners Secretariat has again been appointed for the current year and we would once again thank Virosha and her team for service excellence!
The board agreed to an increase of 8 % for the new term.
SASOG Congress Durban 4-7 March 2018
We would like your support in attending what promises to be an excellent academic programme.
Make sure to attend the session on Monday morning hosted by SASREG on Reproductive Medicine and Endocrinology.
Advertising / Branding of SASREG
As mentioned before, our new website (sasreg.co.za) is up and running and so is our Facebook & Twitter pages.
Dr Yossi Unterslak together with Mr Hein Jonker has done an excellent job. Well done Yossi and Hein and thank you!
We will in future use this as a forum for Review articles by Fellows, Guidelines in Endoscopy and Reproductive Medicine and also international guidelines which we as a Society supports. This important task will be led by Dr Pieter Kruger.
All Fellows are welcome to contact us for details.
Annual General Meeting (AGM)
This event should take place annually and due to the fact that we are not having a SASREG congress in 2018, this will not be practical . We decided to put all funds and energy into the ISGE-ESGE Conference of 2018.
To still meet the requirements of our Constitution, we will do this electronically with voting for amongst other points, an extra seat for Embryologists on Council. Virosha will inform us all soon.
REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE
Accreditation of Clinics
All clinics requesting SASREG accreditation has been listed and the majority of the Clinics have been visited and assessed. The accredited clinics will be listed on our website soon and new clinics will then be evaluated.
It was the decision of the Board that a more rigorous accreditation system needs to be implemented for fair and objective evaluation and according to internationally accepted standards.
This process will soon be undertaken by Prof Thinus Kruger with Dr Chris Venter, Prof Carin Huyser andother members of the subcommittee contributing. We will give more feedback as we learn more but this will only be implemented in three years.
Nursing sisters and patient coordinators
Mrs Karen Schwenke, (Nursing SIG) will work towards possible implementation of an official accreditation Certificate for nursing staff acting as program coordinators.
As we all know, they are the engine rooms of the Clinics and deserve formal recognition. We hope to hear more about this soon
Clinic representation on SASREG
Dr Sulaiman Heylen has been tasked to improve the communication and interaction between clinics and also between the Board and clinics.
The Committee therefore decided to invite clinics to nominate representatives for their clinics (One Clinician, one Embryologist) to serve on a sub-committee for Clinics chaired by Dr Heylen.
This will give every clinic the chance to voice their opinions in a fair and equal way and with direct access to the Board.
We believe that this will strengthen our common goal significantly and that the functions of all sub committees will be improved.
Please take this opportunity and make yourself heard, we can learn much from each other!
It was also decided that on a rotational basis, clinics’ representatives will then be invited to the Committee meetings with direct input. More detail will be worked out by this sub-committee in the near future.
South African ESHRE Update
We are currently in discussion with the industry regarding the possibility of a national Update Conference following European Conferences in order to reach more clinicians and embryologists who cannot all attend major international Conferences.
We are excited about this possibility and will keep you informed.
ESHRE Workshop on Egg Donation
Dr Chris Venter attended this workshop at the end of January in Barcelona tasked by SASREG to update the Committee on international trends in this field. Dr Venter gave feedback during our meeting and we are confident that we are practising according to these international standards.
The Powerpoint presentation prepared by Chris is available on the website and we would like to thank him for his efforts!
We are also currently busy with starting the national Registry on Gamete donation and the discussions with the Irish Registry is underway as a template for South Africa.
Consent Forms
Due to the initiative by Dr Sulaiman Heylen, supported by Dr Michelle Rijsdijk, an attorney Mr Andrew Martin specializing in Fertility Law, was tasked to draft consent forms on all aspects of gametes and management of gametes and embryos within clinics.
The result is forms that comply with the highest local and international standards and will soon be available for free to all accredited clinics with password access. These forms can then be customized with the clinic’s logo. This has been an big financial expense for SASREG but we believe that every clinic will benefit significantly. A word of thanks go out to these three colleagues for their time and efforts.
Conferences
Information about the following Conferences will be sent to you soon:
- IFFS International Symposium, 28 Febr -2 March 2018, Kampala Uganda with Prof Carin Huyser and Prof Silke Dyer as guest speakers
- ISGE Conference Cameroon 23-27 April 2018 with Prof Bash Goolab and Viju Thomas as ISGE Board Members.
- 26th World Congress on Controversies in Obsterics, Gynaecolgy and Infertility (COGI), 23-25 Nov 2018, London UK.
ENDOSCOPIC SURGERY
Coding for surgical Endoscopic procedures
Dr Abri de Bruyn and Prof Igno Siebert undertook this task with great success and after long discussions and trials and error over the past 5 years, Dr du Bruin presented a document of more than 100 pages with detailed descriptions of all procedures in gynaecological endoscopy, supported by photographic images. Together with the task team of SASOG this will be presented to the BHF and discussions will follow. Although it may take up to three years to finalize these discussions before we will see Implementation in clinical practice, this has been a task long overdue. We want to thank Abri and Igno. Their work may easily go unrecognized with all of us benefitting over time due to their dedication.
ISGE-ESGE-SASREG Conference 14-18 April 2019, Cape Town
If you must choose attending one conference in the next 18 months, make sure that it is this one!
SASREG is hosting this combined Congress of International Societies in Cape Town’s ICC with Dr Viju Thomas and Prof Igno Siebert as organizers. We are confident that this will truly be a world class congress on African soil with visitors from Europe and African countries alike. Please diarize these dates.
South African Society for Minimally Invasive Gynaecological Surgery
SASREG has been the home of Gynaecological Endoscopy for more than 30 years. The Fellowship in Reproductive Medicine is the only sub speciality in Gynaecology where Endoscopy is part of the formal College curriculum.
Both generalists, Fertility specialists and colleagues from other sub disciplines has benefitted from numerous workshops, lectures at conferences and publications in this field over this long period of time and as known to you, the WINNERS program has been successfully implemented here a few years ago as the first non-European centre.
However, as other sub disciplines in gynaecology, eg. Urogynaecology and Oncology developed, their interest in endoscopy grew and the need developed for them to move forward within their own sub speciality.
With voices from academic colleagues in other fields questioning the role of SASREG at the recent SASOG Workshop in December 2017, SASREG’s board took the decision to encourage the formation of a separate society within gynaecological endoscopy where each sub discipline can be represented as an independent arm.
It is our suggestion that the MIS Society works together on common ground like basic training skills(WINNERS 1) and more advanced training (WINNERS 2) but that each sub discipline take responsibility for training of Fellows within their surgical field of practice (WINNERS 3).
We believe that instead of duplication, we can all work together for basic training under one umbrella without losing our own identities within general gynaecology, reproductive surgery, oncology and urogynacology.
This has been discussed with Dr Johannes Van Waart, SASOG President and it has his full support.
We will soon contact the other sub disciplines to set up a meeting to form such a society.
In this way we may reach our goal of accreditation of surgeons and surgical centres of expertise.
We wish you and your families and staff a prosperous 2018!

President

Vice President