Dear lovely supporters of WOC-UK,
I end this year by giving you a brief summary what we have achieved this year.
In the build-up to the annual conference this year, we ran a successful fundraising campaign and managed to raise over £3k towards our work to empower LMICs surgically.
In June, we held the annual conference at the Biocomposites facility with many of us meeting for a pre-conference social the night before. We had an absolutely packed programme on the day with incredible work from our partners around the globe being showcased.
It was not long before we staged one of the most captivating sessions at the BOA in September, with 2 international speakers (one in person and one virtually). We also were treated to a lovely piece on the history of WOC-UK, during which we paid tribute to one of the WOC-UK founders, Geoffrey Walker.
We appointed our next Future Leaders Programme candidate soon after and no one deserved this more than Mr Dan Yeomans, long term WOC member from Severn Deanery.
We joined forces with BOTA in November for the global orthopaedics sessions with a range of presentations from our joint bursary winners from last year.
Lastly, a delegation of WOC-UK committee and wider members went to Bujumbura in December to help with the COSECSA exams, which was of an exceptionally high standard this year. We continue to support and strengthen our link with this remarkable college.
We are already busy planning next year’s conference in June. Please save the dates of Friday 5 June (pm) for the first WOC-UK instructional course on LMIC working and Saturday 6 June (all day) for the main conference. Both events will be held at the BBraun Aesculap Academy in Sheffield (Thorncliffe Park, S35 2PW). Overnight accommodation will be available at discounted rates for first 40 people to sign up. We will endeavour to repeat our popular social gathering on the Friday night again this year. Looking forward to meeting as many of you there as possible.
Details of WOC-UK events with registration links will be advertised via our website (https://wocuk.org) social media channels which are actively being revamped at the moment by our new media rep Rachel Steedman. Look us up on https://m.facebook.com/groups/WOCuk/
There’s lots more happening which I won’t bore you with but suffice to say these are very exciting times for global orthopaedics and WOC-UK.
As chairman, I thank you all for your continued support in so many ways this year and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I hope you get the rest you all deserve for your hard work and dedication to your patients wherever they are.
Ashtin Doorgakant
21.12.2025
Ashtin Doorgakant