NSRS CONCLUDES 87TH SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE IN BENIN, SETS STRATEGIC AGENDA FOR NIGERIA’S SURGICAL WORKFORCE

Benin City, Nigeria — July 2026: The Nigerian Surgical Research Society (NSRS) has successfully concluded its 87th Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference in Benin City, Edo State, bringing together leading surgeons, researchers, educators, policymakers, and trainees from across the country and beyond.

The conference, hosted at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), focused on one of the most pressing issues in Nigeria’s healthcare sector: the future of the nation’s surgical workforce.

This year’s theme, “Surgical Workforce 2030: Training, Retaining and Task-Sharing in the Nigerian Context,”guided two days of intensive deliberations, scientific presentations, and policy-driven discussions. According to the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee, Professor Stanley Ukadike Okugbo, the theme “strikes at the very heart of the structural headwinds confronting healthcare delivery in Nigeria today,” highlighting the challenges of brain drain, uneven workforce distribution, and evolving surgical needs.

In his presidential address, Prof. Afeyodion Akhator, President of NSRS, emphasized the urgency of strengthening surgical training programs, improving retention strategies, and adopting safe, evidence-based task-sharing models. He noted that the outcomes of the conference “will influence the direction of surgical education, workforce planning, healthcare policy, and patient care for years to come.”

A major highlight of the event was the keynote lecture delivered by Professor Peter Ndidi Ebeigbe, immediate past President of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria and Consultant to the World Health
Organization. His address provided a comprehensive roadmap for building a resilient and future-ready surgical workforce, drawing on global best practices and Nigeria’s unique healthcare realities.

The conference featured multiple scientific sessions, exhibitions, debates, and a pre-conference workshop. Delegates presented high-quality abstracts spanning trauma care, oncology, gastrointestinal surgery, surgical

education, and innovations in clinical practice. Participants were also encouraged to experience the cultural richness of Benin City, described in the brochure as “one of Africa’s most historic urban centres and the cradle of the ancient Benin Kingdom.”

The 87th AGM also marked a significant leadership transition for the Society. Members elected a new executive committee to steer NSRS into its next phase of growth, including preparations for the Society’s landmark 50th anniversary in December.

New Executive Committee of the Nigerian Surgical Research Society (NSRS)
• Dr. George C. Obonna — President
• Dr. Clement Odion — Secretary
• Dr. Lucky Ehiagwina — Assistant Secretary
• Dr. Raymond Eghonghon — Treasurer
• Dr. Omorodion Irowa — Auditor
• Prof. Emmanuel Akpo — Editor
• Dr. Francis Campbell — Assistant Editor
• Prof. Aifeyodion Akhator — Ex Officio I
• Prof. Stanley Okugbo — Ex Officio II

Why you feel dizzy when you stand up?

A young, healthy patient asked me: “Doc, sometimes when I stand up from the bed too fast, my vision goes completely black for two seconds and I get dizzy. Am I having a mini-stroke?”

No, it is actually proof that your nervous system is working perfectly.

The exact neurovascular cascade behind why your vision blacks out when you stand up too fast and why you don’t actually pass out. 👇

• The Gravity Drop: When you are lying down, your heart pumps blood easily on a flat plane. The moment you stand up abruptly, gravity instantly pulls about 500 to 800 mL of your blood straight down into your legs.

• The Transient Drain: This sudden pooling means less blood returns to your heart, which temporarily means less blood is pumped up to your head. For a split second, your brain experiences a drop in pressure.

• The Visual Blackout: The retina (the back of your eye) is incredibly sensitive to oxygen and pressure changes. When the blood pressure dips, the retina temporarily shuts down to conserve energy which is exactly why your vision goes black or static.

• The Baroreceptor Rescue: Luckily, you have pressure sensors (baroreceptors) in your neck. Within milliseconds, they detect the blood pressure drop and fire a panic signal to your brainstem.

• The Sympathetic Snap: Your autonomic nervous system instantly kicks in. It violently constricts the blood vessels in your legs and spikes your heart rate, physically squeezing the blood right back up to your brain. Vision restored.

Summary:

First time this happened to me I genuinely thought I was dying.
Turns out my body was just buffering.
Knowing the science changes everything

Here’s what’s actually happening:

When you stand up quickly, gravity pulls blood downward. Your body briefly has less blood reaching the brain. Your nervous system — specifically the baroreceptors –detects this drop and rapidly triggers your heart to beat faster and your blood vessels to constrict, restoring blood flow within seconds.
The momentary blackout and dizziness is just that brief gap before the correction kicks in.

👉Hi, I am Dr. Priyam. I break down complex medical science and advocate for Evidence-Based Medicine. FOLLOW ME for more clinical facts.

can a+ and a+ give birth to o+ or O negative?

It’s a panic that lands in clinics and WhatsApp groups far too often: “Both of us are A positive… how is our child O negative? Did the lab mess up? Or is something else going on?”

The short, reassuring answer is no lab error, no mystery, and no betrayal. This outcome is completely possible under normal genetics. Here’s why the “math” actually maths perfectly once we look at what blood-type tests really reveal.

Your blood type is decided by two separate systems that most people only see the final phenotype of, not the hidden genes.
ABO system 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

Type A means you carry at least one A allele. You could be AA or AO. The O allele is recessive and invisible in your test result. If both you and your partner are AO (very common), each of you has a 50 % chance of passing the O allele. When both pass O, the child is blood group O. Roughly 45–50 % of people with type A are actually AO carriers, so this pairing happens every day.

Rh (positive/negative) system 🩸🩸🩸
“Positive” means you have the dominant D antigen. You can still be heterozygous Dd and carry the recessive d allele. If both parents are Dd, there is a 25 % chance the child inherits d from both and is Rh negative. About 15 % of people are Rh negative, which means a large portion of “positive” people quietly carry the d gene.

When both parents are A positive but heterozygous for both traits (AO and Dd), an O-negative child is not only possible — it is mathematically expected in a predictable percentage of pregnancies. The child simply received the two recessive alleles that were hiding in plain sight in both parents.
Blood-group reports show only what antigens are expressed on red cells. They do not sequence your DNA or tell you whether you are homozygous or heterozygous. That hidden information is what allows “impossible” combinations to appear regularly in perfectly ordinary families.

This is basic Mendelian inheritance, not infidelity or laboratory failure. The same recessive-gene logic explains blue-eyed children born to brown-eyed parents or curly-haired kids from straight-haired couples. It is science doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

If the result still feels unsettling, a simple conversation with your doctor or a genetics counsellor can walk you through your specific probabilities. In the overwhelming majority of cases, however, the only thing that needs updating is the outdated assumption that blood types behave like simple labels instead of the elegant, recessive-carrying system they actually are.

Your O-negative child is not evidence of a mistake. They are proof that genetics loves surprises — and that love (and science) are doing just fine.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Dr Parveen Yograj