The First Mediterranean FESS course was organised by the Malta Institute for Medical Education (MIME) in the Michelangelo Grima Hall of the Mediterranean Conference Centre. It was organised by the Malta Institute for Medical Education (MIME), an independent educational facility based at the centre.

MIME was created in 2008 by a group of Maltese medical academics, with the purpose of promoting multidisciplinary non-structured postgraduate courses for Maltese medical trainees.

The event was run by the foremost international faculty on the FESS procedure. FESS stands for Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery and refers to an innovative minimally invasive nasal technique to access the whole of the base of the skull and the interior of the skull, without an incision. This procedure was originally designed for functional surgery on the nasal sinuses, but it can also be applied to surgery on brain tumours. This technique, which requires a very high level of skill, significantly reduces complications from disturbance to the brain associated with an open, external approach, and shortens the patient’s hospital stay.

The course targeted trainees and specialists in Otolaryngology (ENT) and neurosurgery and was designed to demonstrate a panorama on the applications of FESS in the different scenarios. The teaching was very detailed and involved anatomical dissection as well as high quality unedited surgical footage.

Sixty delegates from 22 countries in Europe, the Philippines, New Zealand and the Far East attended the course, with the entire Maltese Otolaryngology community from trainees to established consultants. The course was led by Professor Heinz Stammberger, chairman of the Otolaryngology Department at the University Of Graz, Austria. He is the world’s foremost authority on the subject of FESS, having perfected both the techniques as well as the instrumentation in the 1980s.