Page 6 - ASPIRE AUGUST 2022 Vol 7 Issue 3

EDUCATION AND ACCREDITATION
Delivering wide range of professional development opportunities to enhance our standards of care
ASPIRE’s education and accreditation program this year has provided a range of important professional development and certification opportunities for members.
Dr Virgilio Novero, Chair of ASPIRE’s Education Committee, said the program in part had been developed collaboratively with Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and other organisations with valued support from the pharmaceutical industry.
ASPIRE’s Accreditation Committee is also delivering certification and education courses to enhance standards and uniformity of patient centred care across the region.
The ASPIRE-CPAM Masterclass Webinar Series entitled Fundamental Concepts in ART – Bridging the Gap was made possible with support from ASPIRE President,
Professor T. C. Li, Chinese leaders in reproductive medicine, including Professor Rong Li, who is a member of the Education Committee, and Ferring.
“This program running through to November will be an ongoing success not only through bridging the gap in scientific information, but also in facilitating professional interaction,” Dr Novero said.
The ASPIRE Basic Certificate Course WHO Laboratory Manual for the Examination and Processing of Human Semen, 6th Edition is another important initiative as a multimodule course.
It was developed collaboratively by the Education and Accreditation Committees, and the SIGs of Embryology and Male Infertility. The course featured esteemed authors and co-authors of the WHO Laboratory Manual including Professor Christopher Barratt, Professor Ling Chi, Emeritus Professor Eberhard Nieschlag, Professor Ashok Agarwal and Professor Atsushi Tanaka.”
The ASPIRE Basic Certificate Course on Early Pregnancy Management for Nurses in February and March was the maiden webinar of the new SIG for Reproductive Nurses, which developed the program with Professor T. C. Li and the Education Committee.
“It has been a welcome first activity for the newest members of ASPIRE,” Dr Novero said.
The Certificate Course in Counselling for Nurses in June and July included 256 287 and 261 participants
respectively in each of the three modules entitled Basic Aspects and Information Counselling, Supportive Counselling and Implication Counselling and Experience Sharing.
The New Answers to Old Topics presentation in July featured ASPIRE speakers including Professor T. C. Li and Dr Ho Manh Tuong.
In July, the Education Committee developed presentations on Advances in Next Generation Sequencing Technology: Building a Dynamic Reproductive Health Research Lab, an ASPIRE-Thermo Fisher Scientific Masterclass Collaboration.
“This was a well-attended masterclass on pre- conception carrier screening, pre-implantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) and setting up a PGT facility in an IVF laboratory,” Dr Novero explained.
PCOS: A Diagnosis of Exclusion – What You See Is Not Always What You Get! in July was also an excellent educational meeting providing specific guidance on the diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome.
In August the webinar entitled How to Read and Understand Scientific Data/Paper (With a Focus on Embryology) was designed to encourage embryologists in our region to write and submit papers on their work to respected publications including the ASPIRE journal Fertility and Reproduction.
On 5 November, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Time- Lapse Incubation webinar developed by the Education Committee and the Embryology SIG will provide insights into future technologies that may improve outcomes in our IVF laboratories.
The Accreditation Committee Chair, Dr Haroon Latif, said: “The Asia Pacific region has the highest number of ART cycles in the world. There is also diversity in the provision of treatments for ART.
“Some areas in the region are well-regulated in terms of ART (for example, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong) while others may not be so well regulated, and may only be at infancy level.
“ASPIRE aims to develop guidelines that can be made accessible to everyone in the region. Clinics or individuals can review the guidelines and determine if they need ASPIRE’s training programs to help upgrade their services to benefit patient care.
“ASPIRE will not be imposing these guidelines on anyone, nor does it plan to be a regulatory authority.”
Dr Latif said the initiative would run in two phases:
1. developing the guidelines for embryologists and disseminating them to the region; and
2. running tiered certification courses (basic to advance
,
level)
4