The biannual and the first bilingual (English and French) meeting of the Pan African Association of Pediatric Surgeons (PAPSA2025 Congress), took place in Abidjan Cote dIvoire on the 29 and 30 May 2025. Multiple pre Congress workshops were conducted from 26 to 28 May 2025. One of them was the first Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery (GICS) Pediatric Trauma workshop.

 

 The Congress had about 120 delegates from all over Africa and beyond, majority of them from the French speaking western Africa. There was robust scientific interaction and junior colleagues could interact freely with the senior ones to establish mentee and mentor relationships. Dr Chitnis introduced many young trainees to InterSurgeon and encouraged them to register for it. 

 

 

Ohana One sponsored Mr Peter Ronoh, an IT technician from Kenya and Dr Biruk Bekele, a young trainee doctor from Ethiopia to attend the PAPSA Congress. Dr Milind Chitnis, Pediatric Surgeon from South Africa is mentoring Dr Bekele using smart technology offered by Ohana One and InterSurgeon. 

After facing many unsurmountable technical difficulties using the Ohana One smart glasses and the televu camera, Peter advised Drs Chitnis and Bekele to try connecting with the helplightening platform. After returning to their respective homes Drs Chitnis (with his mobile phone) and Bekele (on his laptop) could connect seamlessly using helplightening. They have acquired ethical approval from (Walter Sisulu) university to start the mentorship program.  Dr Chitnis will livestream common Paediatric Surgical operations using helplightning to Dr Bekele starting from Thursday 26 June. They will conduct a scientific study about the utility of telementoring using smart technology. The results of the study will be made available to the boards of Ohana One and InterSurgeon and will be presented at future scientific meetings and published in a relevant journal. Drs Chitnis and Bekele are quite excited about this project.