Finnish Trauma Association

History

– Founding year 1997, officially registered in 2000.
– Founding members: Eero Hirvensalo, Seppo Honkonen, Pentti Kallio, Jan Lindahl, Erkki Tukiainen and Kimmo Vihtonen.
– During the 1990´s it had become obvious that also in Finland there was a major need for dedicated trauma orthopaedic surgeons to lead the treatment of polytrauma patients, to take care of the complex fractures and to supervise the management of simple fractures as well. The intention of the founding members was to build up a society for emphasizing the traumatologic knowledge, skills and attitude in Finland.

Aims of the society

Finnish Trauma Association was founded to maintain and develop traumatologic knowledge, skills and attitude of the Finnish surgeons from all the surgical specialities. To achieve the aim, the society arranges meetings and courses, promotes research and educational activities. The society also gives statements and rec-ommendations of the issues concerning traumatology by the request of officials or other societies.

Membership and development throughout the years

In the beginning new members were invited to the society according to the recommendations by members. Trauma-dedicated surgeons from the main hospitals in Finland gradually comprised an active society. Later on, the membership was opened and our new contemporary rules state, that a member has to be a licensed doctor; no recommendations are needed. There also are no limitations of certain medical specialities and registrars are welcome as well.

After the first few starting years the society reached a sufficient number of actively working members. The real takeoff of the society was the first National Trauma Course in Helsinki 2004. Along with the annual Trauma Courses the finances of the society were stabilized and further activities could have been planned. When subsequent courses have been consecutively arranged in all other University Hospitals in Finland (Oulu, Tampere, Turku, Kuopio), the society has deserved nationwide reliability and acceptance.

The current number of members is 100. About 72% of the members are orthopaedic trauma surgeons. Plastic surgeons, hand surgeons and paediatric surgeons are also represented. Abdominal or general surgeons together with thoracic and vascular surgeons are still minority in our society, although we expect to get more members from these specialities in the next few years.

In the beginning of the 2010 Finnish Trauma Association took a next step in its development path, when the society was accepted as an institutional member of ESTES. This opened important opportunities to our society. To build up international connections will be one of our main issues in following years.

There has been a need for a standardized trauma course in Finland. In 2011, the European Trauma Course (ETC) was implemented in Finland by the Finnish Trauma Association. In 2012 we run the second Finnish ETC and managed to increase the number of Finnish ETC instructors up to almost self sufficient level. In the future, we aim to organize two annual ETC courses instructed by the Finnish faculty.

The International Surgical Week (ISW) 2013, the annual world congress of the International Society of Sur-gery (ISS), was organized in Helsinki Finland 25-29 August 2013. The Finnish Trauma Association took part in co-organizing this world wide congress by hosting three trauma dedicated sessions with international guest speakers.

Yearly activities

The National Trauma Course, the annual educational three-day meeting
– scientific program includes both general trauma and orthopaedic trauma topics
– the course is organized in co-operation with the Finnish Trauma Nurse Association
The National Trauma Masters Course
– a very compact “experts meet experts” –type meeting, for which our society invites about 20 partici-pants, the dedicated trauma surgeons from the major hospitals around Finland to discuss and teach each other
European Trauma Course – ETC
– a standardized three day hands on trauma course organized twice a year
Definitive Surgical Trauma Care – DSTC
– a standardized three day hands on surgical trauma care course organized once a year

Contacts

Chair
Dr Anna Kerola
puheenjohtaja@traumasurgery.fi

Secretary of the board
Dr Mari Heikkinen
sihteeri@traumasurgery.fi

Communications and webmaster
Dr Anna Kerola
puheenjohtaja@traumasurgery.fi

Educational activities

Contact for ETC Finland
Dr Ville Vänni
ville.vanni@gmail.com

Contact for DSTC Finland

Dr Lauri Handolin

lauri.handolin@hus.fi

Membership applications

sihteeri@traumasurgery.fi

Grant applications

sihteeri@traumasurgery.fi