Welcome & Introductions: Update Course 2018

Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening. Welcome to the 6th annual Stay Current in Pediatric Surgerypta course. I'm Todd Ponsky and we're recording here live in Akron, Ohio, and, uh, we have a, a very good show for you today. Today is gonna be, uh, uh, fun as always. We've got a, a STEM faculty. We've got people coming in from all over the world to share perspective on what are the new trends and ideas in pediatric surgery that we should know. And uh uh first we're gonna go through a couple of uh housekeeping things about how this all works technologically um and I'll just tell everyone here I can pretty much promise you that there will be technical glitches as always, uh, so bear with us. If things don't seem to be working well, the general solution is to just restart, refresh your browser or just close it and restart your browser and come back in again. That fixes it almost every time. Uh, as you all have noticed, this is free, and we plan on always making this free, and that's because of very gracious hosts that have, uh, put money forth to make this possible. And, uh, first, I want to thank Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Children's Mercy of Kansas City. Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children, Children's Health Care of Atlanta, and the Buffalo Children's Hospital, and is it O'Shea Oshai, it's a new name this year. He invented windshield wipers, uh, and he is, and he is the, the, the new name to Children's Hospital. So it's, uh, the Osha Children's Hospital in Buffalo. And Akron Children's Hospital as well. And uh also the Journal of Pediatric Surgery uh has uh become a uh proud sponsor and, and helping us put this course together. So thank, thank you to all of these people uh who are all sitting up here who have uh made this, this show possible. Uh, this, as always, for the past 6 years, we have, uh, the same course directors, Doctor Matt Harmon, who is the surgeon in chief at Osha Children's Hospital in Buffalo. Dr. Witt Holcomb, who is the senior vice president at Children's Mercy Kansas City and professor of surgery there. Myself, uh, Doctor Dan Von Almen, who is the surgeon in chief at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Mark Wolkan, who is surgeon in Chief at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and this year, uh, we have a new course director, uh, even though he's been here for the past 6 years, uh, we finally let him, uh, be involved. Uh, Steve Rothenberg, uh, who is, uh, Chief of Surgery at Rocky Mount Hospital for Children, professor of Surgery at Columbia in New York. So thank you all for being here and putting the show together. Uh, as, as I said, we have international panelists who represent the world because we, the whole point here is not just to say what it is we're doing in the United States, but what are the perspectives from around the world. And, uh, so we have, uh, Doctor, uh, Professor Mark Davenport, who is at King's College Hospital. He's not online right now. He'll be coming on later. Uh, we have Doctor David Vanderzee from Utrecht, uh, and I believe, uh, David is actually online now, um, and we'll be able to, uh, say hello to him in a second. Dr. Giovanni Ricipatoni, who is in Milan. And Doctor Ken Wong, who is at Hong Kong. So, uh, welcome to our international guests. I don't know if we can see them or not, but, uh, uh, can you guys hear us over there? Heroes, but I. OK, um, we have a, uh, interesting, uh, breakdown of, of geographic, uh, breakdown on where the audience is from. Um, we have, uh, 30% are from North America and 20% from Europe, and then you can see 20% from Asia and the rest of the breakdown there. These are the, the, uh, the number one, order of countries. And uh as far as how, uh, if you have um how this whole navigation works, if you have any technical problems, just write it in that chat and someone will uh start a private chat thread with you to, uh to be able to uh help you out with your problem. Um, you can also email us at info@globalcastND.com. Polls will be popping up throughout the entire course, so please participate in the polls. Um, and also if you want to ask a question and join us live and come in and talk to us and have yourself on camera, uh, you can click that button at the top and we'll be able to bring you in live, uh, to ask your question. You can either type your chat thread, or your question in the chat or push that button and you can actually raise your hand. We'll show you how to do that in a second and you can join us. That's the first time we're trying that this year. After this is over, you can go to the Globalcast site and if you click on past events, then you can watch the entire recording. Pretty soon we'll have a mobile app that will also allow you to watch the entire event afterwards. Uh, this is all gonna be streamed out, uh, through, uh, through chats and comments, through, uh, all sorts of social media. This will be on Facebook, Twitter, and, uh, Instagram. Uh, you can all get your CME credits. You got an email today or yesterday that uh at the bottom of the email there's a link to go ahead and get your CME credits. And I also believe this is at the top right corner of your screen you'll see a links tab, and you can get access to the CME test there as well. And when you click it, you'll have to take a test. After you take the test, a little hint hint, if you get it wrong, it'll let you keep taking it. Until you get it right, uh, and then once you take the, the test, then, um, you can, uh, go ahead and get, it'll send you your CME certificate. Um, I believe, Alex, where's Cassar? Is this the, um, the video next? Is that what this is? Yeah, so we're gonna play a little video that's gonna show you how to raise your hand and ask a question. If you have a question you would like to ask our panel on the air, start by muting or pausing your live transmission. Click the green button at the top of the screen, and it will open Zoom software and install it if it's not already installed. Once inside, you will see our remote panelists and the live show. Simply raise your hand by clicking on the hand icon below, and we will add you to the meeting so you can ask your question. Please make sure you're on a computer, tablet or phone that has a microphone and camera enabled. Thanks for participating and hope you enjoy the show.