First virtual uro-oncology meeting during the COVID-19 pandemic: 10th Online Eurasian Uro-oncology Congress

Abstract

Objective: COVID-19 has rapidly spread and has become a pandemic by affecting the whole world. During this period, many scientific congresses and educational meetings had to be canceled because of preventive measures. In this report, we aimed to share our first live virtual congress experience, described its process of transformation from face to face to virtual congress and report the attendees and speakers’ satisfaction. Material and Methods: Eurasian Uro-oncological Association (EUA) decided to organize the 10th Eurasian Uro-oncology congress in June 2020 at Göbeklitepe, Şanlıurfa in Turkey. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizing committee decided to organize the first virtual scientific congress in Turkey. The planned duration of the congress was reduced from 4 days to 2 days and each speaker was planned to give the speech online during the presentation via ZOOM program (San Jose, CA). Results: A total of 704 persons registered to the congress. It was the highest number of participants among whole congresses that was organized by EUA. In this congress, there were 199 oral presentations, 25 interactive e-posters and 12 video presentations. During the congress, each participant attended the congress for an average of 387 minutes. It was identified that the majority of the participants were quite satisfied with the program offered. In general, participants were fairly satisfied with the quality of images and sound, chat functionality, questions & answers section and technical support. Conclusion: In this report, we shared the outcomes of our first virtual congress experience in Turkey through the 10th Eurasian Uro-oncology Congress. Today, virtual congresses have become the "new normal" and offer cheaper events with larger participation in the comfort of home. Keywords: Congress, COVID-19, online, virtual, urology