Kenyan researcher shares his first experience of attending international conference with the support from AuthorAID

- Guest Post by Charles Ondieki, Consultant Obstetrician Gynaecologist, Obstetrics and gynaecology department, Machakos Level 5 Hospital, Kenya

I recently attended my first international conference The RCOG world congress 2016 and presented my paper titled “Causes and Types of infertility amongst couples managed at Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya”. The RCOG world congress 2016 was held in Birmingham UK from 19 to 22 June 2016. The congress was very exciting with over 2500 attendees from 71 countries. It provided me with an opportunity to network with colleagues from other countries.

I attended the pre-conference seminar on “leading safe choices: saving women and children”. During this session we were introduced to safe choices programme and informed how we can get involved by taking an active lead in adapting the Best Practice Papers on Post-Partum Family Planning and Comprehensive (Post) Abortion Care in our countries. We also got a taster of the Leading Safe Choices training programmes through practical, interactive sessions including learning how to insert a post-partum IUD on an interactive model. I’m currently in the process of implementing the Best Practice Papers in our facility.

The scientific programme the following three days was academically enriching and challenging. The speakers were interesting and knowledgeable as demonstrated by the excellent debates and discussions which were held. Recent advances in management of reproductive health conditions were discussed, for example uterine transplantation which gives hope to women without a uterus.

The many oral and poster presentations exposed me widely to research. I was able to learn from others on how to make good oral and posters presentations .The experience from the congress and the guidance I got from Barbara Gastel (INASP) on how to improve my poster is invaluable.

During the congress, the Royal College of Obstetrician Gynaecologist (RCOG) launched several guidelines including management of epilepsy on pregnancy and management of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. The process of guideline development and highlights of the guidelines were explained. In addition, I learnt how to adopt guidelines to my local setup.

The knowledge gained during the congress will immensely improve my practice. I plan to adopt some guidelines for use in my hospital to improve patient care.

I sincerely thank AuthorAID for giving me a travel grant which provided an opportunity to attend this conference.