This year, the world-renowned IMCAS aesthetic surgery and cosmetic dermatology congress is taking place in Paris from January 26th to January 29th. Since its inception in 1994, IMCAS has sought to bridge the knowledge gap between Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Dermatology. Founder Dr Benjamin Ascher shares his insider insight about the upcoming IMCAS congress in Paris and its new e-learning branch, the IMCAS Academy!
Founding Footsteps
“It all started 20 years ago,” says Dr Ascher. “At IMCAS, we are doctors and worldwide leaders dedicated to post-university medical teaching. We wanted to provide quality training and teaching to healthcare professionals. There is a huge deregulation in this field,” Dr Ascher notes, explaining that in the UK 60% of continuing medical education activities are handled by non-doctors. “We have become the interface between plastic surgery and cosmetic dermatology. We are the biggest community out there.”
An Ambitious Agenda
There are four IMCAS congresses this year: one in Paris in January, one in Cancun for IMCAS Americas (24th to 26th of March), one in Bali for IMCAS Asia (21st to 23rd of July), one in India. The Paris congress will host 7 000 doctors from 84 countries and 550 speakers will present over a period of 4 days!
At IMCAS, we are doctors and worldwide leaders dedicated to post-university medical teaching who want to provide quality training to healthcare professionals.
This congress will tackle 4 big themes: surgical and non-surgical procedures, clinical dermatology, cosmeceuticals, anatomy training and practice management. The surgical sessions will focus on topics such as breast, face, body, and genitals, as well as non-surgical trends like injectables, threads, lipofilling, stem cells, lasers, and EBDs (Energy Based Devices). The anatomy teaching sessions will be live broadcasted and dedicated entirely to injectable treatments, such as fat transfers and female genital enhancements.
Aesthetic Surgery Meets E-Learning
“A year ago, we launched the IMCAS Academy, an online platform dedicated to medical e-learning, because we understood that learning had to be reinvented through digital technologies,” says Dr Ascher. “We know that one cannot possibly go to each and every single module during our congress. To facilitate this need and to ensure that our participants are able to learn and recap from the entire congress without missing anything, that is why we invented IMCAS Academy”
Learning and gaining knowledge needs to occur in a social setting: this is why the IMCAS Academy offers academic content with a social approach.
“Right now, we live in a digital era and 95% of the available medical content is provided by YouTube. Everyone has access to it and there is no regulation. We came to the conclusion that learning and gaining knowledge needs to occur in a social setting. This is why the IMCAS Academy offers both academic content and a social approach,” Dr Ascher explains. 1000 videos and 200 classes from 80 Key Opinion Leaders are already available on their website!
Dr Ascher says the platform offers free monthly webinars that are open to everyone. There is also an alert system where participants may offer advice on their peers’ difficult cases. “Let’s say I am a specialist of injectables,” Dr Ascher illustrates, “I can then post anytime, anywhere, any type of complication I may encounter within my work and get help from my peers.”
Curious about the IMCAS’ scientific content? Meet your colleagues at IMCAS in Paris from January 26 to 29 or check out IMCAS Academy online and connect with plastic surgeons and dermatologists around the globe. Whether you would like to learn through a world-renowned congress, through an e-learning platform with videos, or through a peer-to-peer one-on-one training, each experience complements each other.
