The inaugural SA Endoscopic Spine Society event will follow on Saturday afternoon.
Great invited faculty
Mr Marcin Czyz
Spine Surgeon | AO Spine Chairman 🇬🇧 & 🇮🇪 | Honorary Associate Clinical Professor
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham
Marcin graduated in 2006. His PhD thesis was in biomechanics 2010. He was fellowship trained in Nottingham and New York. He is interested in spinal oncology, complex spinal reconstructions, minimally invasive surgery and genomics. Marcin is a member of the AOSpine Council UK and Ireland.
Dr Milton Raff
Started in 1995 by Dr Milton Raff, a Specialist Anaesthesiologist, who continues to direct and consult at the facility.
Dr Milton Raff is a past President of the South African Society of Anaesthesiologists (SASA) as well as the past President of PAINSA, the South African Chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). He has held the position of member of the Working Group for Developing Countries of the IASP and was the Chairperson of the Acute Pain Committee of the World Federation of Anaesthesiologists. (WFSA). He is the Editor of the Journal of PAINSA.
As a pain practitioner, Dr Raff has a highly professional medical approach to the understanding of pain, how it works, how it affects our ability to function in daily life, and how it affects our psychological outlook.
Prof Renata Schoeman
MBChB, MSocSc, MMed, FC Psych, PhD, MBA, PgDip Futures Studies
Has been in full-time private practice since 2008. She practises as a general psychiatrist (child, adolescent and adult psychiatry) and has special interests in cognition (i.e. disorders affecting attention, concentration, learning and memory – such as ADHD and dementia), eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and obesity), mood disorders and anxiety disorders.
Renata also holds appointments as associate professor: Leadership, as well as head of the Healthcare Leadership MBA specialization stream (University of Stellenbosch Business School) and as a virtual faculty member of University of Stellenbosch Business School Executive Development’s programme. She is actively involved in student supervision, various research projects, training of general practitioners and peers, and community lectures. She serves on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health (South Africa), on advisory boards of various pharmaceutical companies, and is the convenor of the South African Society of Psychiatrist (SASOP) special interest group for adult ADHD. She has served as a director of the Psychiatry Management Group (PsychMg) from 2016-2023. Renata is a co-founder and director of the Goldilocks and The Bear Foundation (www.gb4adhd.co.za).
Dr. François Lechanoine
Senior consultant neurosurgeon specialized in Brain and Spine conditions. He previously worked in France and moved to Italy in 2021, where he currently collaborates with several private clinics, including the Maria Cecilia Hospital (GVM Care & Research Group) of Cotignola (Ravenna) and the Nova Clinic, in the Republic of San Marino.
He is specialized in the treatment of cervical pathologies, in minimally invasive and endoscopic surgery and in anterior lumbar approaches. He has a particular affection for motion-preservation surgery (endoscopic or prosthetic) and for ERAS protocols associating awake surgery to early recovery and rehabilitation.
Dr Malcolm Pestonji
A accomplished endoscopic spine surgeon practicing in Vasai for the past 31 years, having started spine training under Dr. V.J. Leheri, TNMC Medical College, Mumbai.
He is skilled in routine implantation and microscopic spine surgery and a a senior member of A.O. Spine. Founder of Endoscopic Spine Foundation India and World Federation Spine Endoscopy.
Plus the usual local flavour ………
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