Post by Sanchit Aapan

It was an incredible honour to present my research at The IDEAL Collaboration Conference 2025 - Innovations in Surgical Research - at the world-leading Houston Methodist, Texas! I presented my work exploring “Patient Acceptability of Intraoperative Wearable Technologies”, which forms a small part of the broader vision of IDEAL: bringing structure, standardisation, and regular evaluation to surgical innovation. Doing such allows for improved access to advanacememts in surgery globally, and a greater focus on research which actually translates to improved clinical outcomes for patients. Giving my first oral presentation at such a prestigious meeting was an overwhelming experience, but one which I enjoyed thoroughly and learnt from immensely! One of the highlights of the conference for me was Dr. Reitan Ribeiro sharing his work developing the uterine transposition technique, allowing women with pelvic cancer to undergo radiotherapy without damaging their uterus and ovaries. An incredible feat, bringing fertility back to women for whom it was previously deemed to be close to impossible. It was incredibly inspiring to understand the workflows, thinking, and research pathway behind such life-transforming surgical innovation. I would like to thank my supervisors at the Surgical Technology at Queen Square group, Dr. James Booker, Dr. Chan Hee Koh, and Prof. Hani Marcus, for this opportunity, as well as the team at IDEAL, including Dr. Pedro Ramirez and Prof. Peter McCulloch, for organising such a stimulating and inspiring programme.