The education wing is comprised of several enthusiastic young and experienced surgeons with a passion for education. Our vision is: “to promote safety and quality in surgery by creating an outstanding, streamlined, evidence based educational program for European surgeons through collaboration, standardisation and innovation.”

The main activity for the wing is to arrange the numerous EHS courses. The fundamental course is an introduction for young residents to the world of abdominal wall surgery. In this course, the participants acquire a thorough understanding of hernia disease, with insights to the alternative treatment pathways and the data supporting the current guidelines. The course also covers decision making skills around the work up and care for patients with hernias.

The next level is to master the surgical techniques need to ‘cure’ the hernias. The intermediate course covers the anatomy and techniques needed by the general surgeon to handle the common hernias as inguinal, primary midline and small incisional hernias both in the elective and emergency setting.

For those who work in abdominal wall centres, the advanced course teaches the techniques needed to treat giant hernias, parastomal, lateral incisional and flank hernias. Also, it covers the modern techniques of open abdomen management. Both the intermediate and advanced course are cadaver based courses with world experts as instructors.

After completing the EHS educational pathway, and their general surgical training in their country, the surgeon can proceed even further and take the Fellow of UEMS abdominal wall surgery exam and become a UEMS certified abdominal wall surgeon.

The educational wing also organizes the EHS learning night webinars, where videos of complications in hernia surgery are shown and assessed by experts to identify learning points.