The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) 2024 Charter Week’s theme was ‘Rising to Challenges in a Changing World’. The annual meeting, held at RCSI’s St. Stephen’s Green campus, marks the anniversary of the granting of the Royal Charter to the College in 1784.
The Association has contributed to the programme for many years and this year, Professor Eveline Hitti of the American University of Beirut was the Emergency Medicine keynote speaker. She gave harrowing accounts of the war in Gaza, including the targeting of hospitals, describing it as “not only a ‘genocide’ but a ‘healthocide”’. She went on to say: ”A deliberate strategy in this war is the targeting of healthcare providers; doctors are being kidnapped and killed, healthcare hospitals and services decimated, forcing patients to move from Gaza in search of healthcare”. The audience was openly gripped and moved by the stories of catastrophe and images of abject human suffering and trauma.
The 99th Colles Lecture was presented by Professor David Nott. Professor Nott is at the forefront of humanitarian surgery and Professor of Surgery in Imperial College, London. His lecture was entitled ‘Leaving a Legacy in War Zones’. He is the author of the Sunday Times number 1 best seller: ‘War Doctor; Surgery on the Front Line’.
The keynote speaker on the final day of Charter Week was veteran BBC Correspondent Fergal Keane, who delivered the 31st Carmichael Lecture entitled ‘The Necessity of Hope: Finding Light in a World of Pain’. He delivered a constructive message exhorting us to avoid becoming desensitised to the real and truly appalling displays of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ that we see every hour of every day on our TVs and social media feeds.
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