Flagship course
Curaçao Laparoscopic Course
Our flagship hands-on course. Surgeons and senior residents work through the core laparoscopic skill set on simulators and in the wet lab, under faculty who operate in the same resource setting they do.
- Format
- Hands-on skills course with wet lab
- Level
- Foundation
- Duration
- Multi-day
- Location
- Curaçao
The next intake has not yet been scheduled. Register your interest and the secretariat will contact you as soon as dates and fees are published.
Curriculum
Six modules, taught on simulators and in the wet lab.
The course is deliberately hands-on. Didactic teaching exists to set up the practical work, not to replace it.
- 01
Safe entry and access
Insufflation, open and closed entry, port placement and triangulation. The decisions made in the first five minutes that determine how the rest of the case goes.
- 02
Camera and navigation
Driving the scope for another surgeon, horizon control, and the two-handed technique that separates a comfortable operator from a struggling one.
- 03
Energy and haemostasis
Monopolar, bipolar and advanced energy devices — how they fail, what they do to adjacent tissue, and how to stop bleeding you did not expect.
- 04
Intracorporeal suturing
Needle handling, intracorporeal knot tying and running suture, practised to the point where it is available under pressure.
- 05
Laparoscopic cholecystectomy
The full procedure in the wet lab, built around the critical view of safety, with the bail-out options rehearsed rather than described.
- 06
Complications
Recognising bile duct injury, bowel injury and vascular injury early, and the conversion decision made calmly instead of late.
Who it is for
Built for the surgeon who will be operating on Monday.
Faculty teach with the instrument sets and the constraints that exist in Caribbean theatres, because a technique that only works with equipment you do not have is not a technique you have learned.
- General surgeons building or consolidating a laparoscopic practice
- Senior surgical residents and fellows
- Surgeons returning to minimally invasive work after a gap
- CaSES members preparing to join the teaching faculty
Places are limited by the number of wet-lab stations. Active CaSES members are given priority and the member rate.
Register your interest
Tell the secretariat you would like a place on the next Curaçao Laparoscopic Course and you will be contacted the moment dates, fees and the application window are confirmed.