In November, Dr. Anderson spent a few days away from his practice in Montana. He traveled to Henderson, Nevada, to attend a Cook Vista training lab about component separation.
This was Dr. Anderson’s first time at a Cook-sponsored training lab. Surgeons around the globe deal with organizational changes, information overload, and high expectations from their patients (more about that here). Many turn to training labs to learn advanced techniques and to stay ahead of the curve.
Dr. Anderson, Mr. Rooney, and Jodie spoke with us from these Vista locations.
The point of the spear
Some surgeons attend a lab in order to build relationships with other attendees and faculty. At Cook Vista training events, top surgeons lead lectures and labs. “Especially for being sponsored by Cook, the lecturers were fairly unbiased,” Dr. Anderson says. “A highlight for me was hearing the people who are on the point of the spear in the hernia world talk about what they do in complex cases.”
One of those surgeons is Mr. Rooney from Liverpool. He’s a faculty surgeon in the U.K., and has been a partner with Cook’s surgery division for years. “Cook as a company is focused on product development, research, and education,” Mr. Rooney says. “I’m not forced into plugging Cook in our educational work.”
Vista events are designed that way: to focus on education, not on selling products. Jodie O’Bryan leads Vista events in Australia. “The overall goals of the training labs,” she says, “are to foster collaborative partnerships, provide clinically relevant education, and provide product support.”
Organizing and informing
To assemble a Vista event, Jodie prepares the faculty surgeon, finds a venue, coordinates travel, and secures a lab. “We want the attendees to experience a well organized and informative training lab,” she says. She’s rewarded when she hears the attendees’ praise. Her favorite praise to hear is: “This is one of the best training events I’ve ever attended.”
Dr. Anderson attended a lab far away from Jodie’s hometown of Brisbane. Still, his experience at Vista will make her proud. “It was very well organized,” he says. “Being able to try out the techniques right after we talked about them was very helpful. The lecturers did a great job.”