The 26th Annual EAU Congress in Vienna marks a change in the scientific programme. The multitude of abstract presentations will move away from the mixed format of the previous congresses, and focus on poster sessions. The popular video sessions will continue alongside the other presentations.

In previous years, the presentations of abstracts occurred in oral and video sessions, in addition to the poster format. The decision to move on from the oral sessions to poster sessions comes from the EAU Scientific Committee, based on successful trials at last year’s EAU Congress in Barcelona.

The committee prepares the scientific content of the Congress, including the plenary and sub-plenary sessions, and the abstract presentations. Almost 4000 abstracts were submitted to the committee this year, which were then all thoroughly reviewed, verified and finally scored. The top 30% was then divided into 92 sessions.

We spoke to Professor Hamdy, chairman of the EAU Scientific Committee, about the changes surrounding the abstract presentations.

EAU: What form will the abstract presentations take in Vienna?
Prof. Hamdy: This year, the abstracts will be presented in poster presentations exclusively. They will be grouped in 92 sessions of 12-14 posters each, arranged by topic. During a session, the posters are on display for twenty minutes, allowing the audience to freely view them and speak with their respective authors. The session is then introduced by the chair. In a regular poster presentation, the presenter has two minutes to talk about the results of the paper, followed by a two-minute discussion with the audience.

In addition, the committee has arranged for up to four of a session’s posters to be presented more thoroughly. These are the extended poster sessions. They will allow for a four-minute presentation, followed by a two-minute discussion. Some posters are more controversial than others, and they need more discussion. Because these topics are more complicated, we provide the opportunity for these topics to be debated with a little more time for discussion.

EAU: How is it decided which topics require more discussion, and then become extended poster presentations?
Prof Hamdy: The members of the scientific committee discuss all the sessions and decide as a group which posters need an extended presentation, and which don’t. This is not a reflection of a poster’s quality. When it comes to difficult clinical presentations, some of them may need more time for clarification. Because these papers are more complex, we may feel that they need more discussion, clarification and interaction. In fact, some sessions will not feature any extended presentations, and contain only the regular poster presentations.

EAU: What motivated the shift to poster presentations?
Prof. Hamdy: The reasoning is twofold. First of all, the format of the poster sessions gives the opportunity for the delegates to have much more informal and more useful discussions, because the groups are smaller. The advantage over the previous oral sessions lies in audience interaction. The presenter will be more involved with the audience, rather than standing on a distant podium. Delegates will no longer have to stand up and speak through a microphone to address the presenter. This is also a change for the better as the majority of the delegates aren’t native English speakers.

Secondly, we can fit more poster presentations in a single session than we were able to in an oral session. The committee receives an increasing number of submissions every year, and at this point we are only able to accept around a third. If the number of submissions keeps increasing, we would see a decline in the percentage of papers that we would be able to accept. We have to increase the capacity of the programme by converting to poster sessions just to maintain this ratio. In future, we might even be able to improve the acceptance rate. Thanks to this move to poster sessions, we’ll be able to accommodate more high quality submissions!

Today, urologists in Europe make use of numerous opportunities for continuing medical education, and while professional education continues to evolve, the role of accreditation in this process cannot be underestimated.

In most European countries, such programmes require assessment regarding the quality of presented contents, and this evaluation is carried out by national accreditation authorities. Both continuing professional development and accreditation have long gained acceptance across the board of medical practitioners in Europe, and urologists are not an exception.

At the same time, current trends in cross-border health practices and international education initiatives once again bring into focus the importance of a streamlined pan-European accreditation policy and a CME credit registry.

Across Europe, these processes are realised through the work of three organisations, the EAU, the European Board of Urology (EBU)– which is an independent regulatory body – and the EU-ACME Committee.

While the EAU develops and provides educational activities to urologists, the EBU oversees the accreditation process, working under the aegis and in compliance with UEMS/EACCME regulations. Education and accreditation meet under the umbrella of EU-ACME Committee (European Urology – Accredited Continuing Medical Education), which provides urologists with a platform for a transparent across-the-border registry of CME credits.

Much has been achieved in the last five years – most of EAU educational activities are accredited by the EBU and more than 18000 urologists joined the EU-ACME programme. On the other hand, new trends in education methodology and further internationalisation of science by means of digital technology present new challenges to the work of EAU, EBU and EU-ACME. Prof. J.M. (Rien) Nijman, of UMC Groningen in the Netherlands, and EU-ACME Chairman Elect commented on these issues.

EAU: What is the role of accreditation in the development of CME in urology?
Prof. Nijman: Accreditation itself does not determine or influence the direction in which continuous medical education develops. It would be more appropriate to say that acceptance and adherence to accreditation protocols in the entire spectrum of educational activities in urology would up the overall standards and harmonise the application of education methodology.

In practice, it implies that urologists can always be sure of the fact that the contents of an accredited course received expert evaluation – which is both unbiased and complies with accepted regulations. Today, we don’t need to convince anybody about the importance of accreditation in CME, especially so on a pan-European level, so we can concentrate on the “logistical” challenges of this integrated approach to continuous medical education.

EAU: Which issues need to be addressed today?
Prof. Nijman: The EBU accreditation system works extremely well, and the EU-ACME credit collection is already well integrated into this system. One of the main challenges is to introduce and make this system acceptable in all EU countries – this is one of our most immediate goals as it would bring tangible benefits to urologists. In the Netherlands, for example, the national accreditation authority accepts EU-ACME credits and all the points that Dutch practitioners earn through participating in European educational activities automatically appear on their national “account”.

It seems logical that national and European systems should be integrated, but accreditation protocols and organisations responsible vary from country to country, and in reality such harmonisation is not always straightforward.

EAU: What are the trends in the field of CME accreditation?
Prof. Nijman: I could mention several important trends here – and I was very pleased to see them addressed during the recent European CME forum in Berlin. First of all, it was exciting to see that stakeholders, other than medical practitioners, have joined the discussion about the quality of continuous medical education, such as patient groups and the pharmaceutical industry.

In the case of the latter, many developments are taking place, and it is encouraging to see that the industry is becoming much more receptive to the practice of separating their educational and marketing activities. While some of the large companies are taking a proactive approach and investigate where in education they can make a difference - without trying to organise and influence these activities - many still see education as a marketing opportunity. The fact that industry is joining the conversation enables us all to build more meaningful and productive bridges for cooperation.

Another important trend is our orientation towards the core essence of education. Now that we have efficient accreditation and credit collection systems in place, we can once again go back to the question of educational methodology and objectives. Why is it that people want to learn? How do we put together an education programme that offers the highest learning potential to its participants? Where can methodology be improved? Today, what can we learn from CME organisers in other medical specialities? These are indeed core questions and we need to remind ourselves to return to them at every step of our development.