The Minimally Invasive Surgery Symposium (MISS) Tenth Annual Conference

Symposium Synopsis: The Minimally Invasive Surgery Symposium (MISS) Tenth Annual Conference
San Diego, California, February 22–27, 2010

by Kathleen Wenzler

Kathleen Wenzler is from Quadrant HealthCom, Inc., Parsippany, New Jersey

Bariatric Times. 2010;7(4):27

The 10th Anniversary Minimally Invasive Surgery Symposium (MISS) and its flagship program on morbid obesity took place in San Diego, California, February 22–27, 2010. The five-dave conference was attended by more than 250 general and bariatric surgeons from across the United States.

Founder and Executive Director Philip R. Schauer, MD, Co-Directors John Dixon, MD, and Bruce Wolfe, MD, and an internationally renowned faculty of thought leaders and pioneers in minimally invasive surgery conducted a comprehensive two-and-a-half-day program that opened with an examination of basic metabolic science and ended with an exploration of new frontiers and controversies in the treatment of morbid obesity.

The 2010 MISS lived up to its reputation as a hotbed of clinical deliberation with a pro and con debate on single-port bariatric surgery between Drs. Jaime Ponce and Kenneth MacDonald, Jr. and a point/counterpoint discussion on bariatric Centers of Excellence presented by Drs. Walter Pories, Edward Livingston, and David Flum.

Among the compelling panel discussions offered at the conference were a video festival on techniques and complications in minimally invasive bariatric surgery presented by a panel that included Drs. Philip Schauer, Scott Shikora, Jeffrey Allen, Ricardo Cohen, Stacy Brethauer, and Ninh Nguyen, and a discussion of clinical dilemmas with potential legal consequences featuring attorneys James Saxton and Kathleen McCauley interfacing with surgeons Livingston, Shikora, MacDonald, and Allen.

Other notable presentations included Dr. Matthew Kroh’s lecture on combination surgical therapy and Drs. John Dixon and Ninh Nguyen discussing the new data in the band versus bypass debate.

MISS has traditionally taken place during the President’s Day vacation week and will return to that schedule in 2011 at a venue in Salt Lake City, Utah. For more information about MISS, visit www.miss-cme.org

Category: Past Articles, Symposium Synopsis