International skeletal society outreach in Colombia.

The Colombian ISS outreach program was conducted in collaboration with the Department of Diagnostic Imaging of the University Hospital of San Ignacio at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (PUJ) in Bogota and as a part of the XXXV Congress of the Colombian Radiological Association (ACR) in Cartagena from August 3 to 6, 2010. Both meetings were enthusiastically attended with an average of 140 participants per day. Members of the ISS outreach team included Dr. Javier Beltran from Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Diego Jaramillo from Philadelphia, PA, and Jenny T. Bencardino from New York, NY. All lectures were given in Spanish. The program in Bogota was held at the Carlos Galan Auditorium of the PUJ from August 3 to 4, 2010. Bogota is the capital city of Colombia and has a population of over 8 million people. Currently, there are more than 100 higher education institutes and ten medical schools in Bogota, which play a vital role in the life of the city and its economy. In 2007, Bogota was named a World Book Capital City by UNESCO [1]. Bogota is the first Latin American city to receive this recognition, and the second one in the Americas after Montreal. No wonder that many refer to Colombia’s capital as “The Athens of South America” [2]. The attendees to the outreach program in Bogota were radiologists, orthopedic surgeons, technologists, residents, and fellows in radiology and orthopedics. The audience was very engaged, and the use of a digital interactive response system added greatly to their learning experience. The Outreach program in Cartagena was held at the Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala Convention Center, from August 5 to 6. Cartagena is a city of almost 1 million people located on the Colombian Caribbean coast. Its colonial walled city and fortresses have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel Love in the Time of Cholera is set in Cartagena. The city is very often used as a gathering place for international and national conventions. The 2010 ACR annual meeting in Cartagena had an attendance of 800 radiologists both local and from other Latin American countries. The musculoskeletal program lasted 2 days. The topics of the Outreach Program in Colombia were both basic and advanced in the areas of general and pediatric musculoskeletal radiology with an average of eight lectures per faculty member. All of the ISS Outreach Program teachers participated as jurors of the Evaluating Committee scoring scientific papers and educational exhibits presented at the ACR meeting in Cartagena. The Colombian outreach program provided us with a unique opportunity to interact academically and share professional experiences with a large body of radiologists from Colombia and other Latin American countries. Some of the information presented in this report was collected informally during our visit. Located in northern South America, Colombia is bordered to the north by the Caribbean Sea between Panama and Venezuela, to the east by Venezuela and J. T. Bencardino (*) Department of Radiology, NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases, 301 East 17th Street, New York, NY 10003, USA e-mail: jenny.bencardino@nyumc.org