IPRAS

48th Brazilian Congress of Plastic Surgery Opening CeremonyAnother first was the plenary session on Women in PlasticSurgery, when the audience had a chance to hear fromConnie Neuhann-Lorenz (Germany), Lucie Lessard(Canada), Antonia Marcia Cupello (Rio de Janeiro)and Vera Lucia Cardim (São Paulo) presenting theirexperience and trajectory as Plastic Surgeons and thedifferences and similarities with their male colleagues,in relation to career, profession and life.As I have mentioned in the past, I believe one of themost beautiful aspects of Plastic Surgery as a Specialtyis its internationality – how one can perform proceduresaiming at similar benefits for the patient, with knowledgeacquired though training and collective experience ofour colleagues and professors. We must, however, workharder to ensure adequate and uniform training for ourresidents, as well as adequate and uniform continuationof education for ourselves, practicing Plastic Surgeons.IPRAS is truly engaged in this! Our Board of Directors,under the leadership of Marita Eisenmann-Klein, iscontinuously searching (and finding) ways of ensuringthat this very precious aspect of Plastic Surgery isdistributed as uniformly as possible.There is, however, a lot of work still to be done for usto attain that goal – Sarah Lorenz of Munich, Germanyand some colleagues of her, also residents in PlasticSurgery, are launching a worldwide survey to ascertainthe quality, uniformity and content of training in PlasticSurgery. When the survey reaches you, please makesure you take a moment and help this dedicated groupof young surgeons to plan the world map in PlasticSurgery Training. We need to know, so we can continueto improve the equality of our already establishedinternationality.Prof. Nelson PiccoloIPRAS General Secretary10 IPRAS Journal www.ipras.org Issue 7