Dr. Sutrisno finished plastic surgical training at the Indonesian university Jakarta in 1996. From 2000 till present he has been member of the surgical teaching staff of the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU). Currently he works at AdamMalik University hospital, Pimgadi affiliated University hospital and the Accuplast clinic. The Accuplast clinic is a 25 bed, private hospital, specialized in cleft lip and palate surgery. Until now 3400 patients with cheilo- gnato-palato schizis have been operated upon, approximately 600 per year. Still 1250 new schizis cases emerge every year in Sumatra alone. There is an urgent need of extra plastic surgical capacity.
Dr. Sutrisno will present:
With 17508 islands, Indonesia is the biggest archipelago in the world. Its 251 million inhabitants derive from 300 ethnic groups. No wonder that our nations motto is
“Bhinneka Tunggal Ika” (Unity through diversity). The main concentration of people is at Java (170 million) and Sumatra (45 million). Plastic and reconstructive surgery is a young specialism. Professor Moenadat Wiradmadjka who was trained at Barnes Hospital and Washington university in the fifties is founding father of the plastic surgical training program at the University of Indonesia which started in 1960.
Today, after 54 years, 250 plastic surgeons have left the universities of Indonesia (Jakarta) and Erlanga (Surabaya). Only 150 of them are currently active in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery. The total amount of plastic surgeons that are leaving these Universities every year is around 10 to 15. In 2030 the total population will be 360 million spread across 34 provinces. With the current teaching programs there will be only 250 plastic surgeons to serve their needs That means 1 plastic surgeon on 1.440.000 inhabitants. Patients with cleft lip, palate, burn contractures, maxilla facial trauma, hand trauma our congenital deformities will have to wait for years to get treatment, if at all. There is an acute need for additional plastic surgical training facilities.
Plastic and reconstructive surgeons from the Rotterdam Erasmus University, the Netherlands, have been organizing yearly medical missions to Indonesia since 1993. To strengthen local plastic surgical care in Sumatra, the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) and the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, started to organize a plastic surgical training program in 2010. The road to the final opening of the program, the obstacles and the perseverance of the participants, as well as the challenges for the near future, are discussed in this lecture. In 2019 the first plastic surgeons should graduate from the training program. They will start a battle to alleviate tens of thousands that are currently devoid of plastic surgical care.