RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s medical surgeons have been hailed as the best in the region and on a par with their counterparts in the West. Doctors attending the sixth International Conference on Radiation Medicine (ICRM 2020), in Riyadh, also predicted that the Kingdom had a thriving future in implementing the latest technologies in its health care system. “I think the Saudi medical surgeons are the best in the region. They are highly accomplished and dedicated doctors who are very comparable to the West,” said Dr. Adnan Sheikh, an associate professor of radiology at the University of Ottawa. Sheikh, a delegate at the conference for the second year in Saudi Arabia, added that many Saudi medical students had asked him if they could be trained in Canada. “We would be happy to open new agreements with Saudi Arabia in the field.” Touching on 3-D printing in medicine, Sheikh noted that the technology was used for educational purposes and that it helped in reducing costs of care in the operating room as well as surgery time. “Although 3-D printing is expensive as a technology, it is becoming cheaper. It is evolving a lot where it is mostly used, extensively now for child heart disease across the world,” he said. Sheikh pointed out that China and the US were leading the way in applying 3-D printing in their health care sectors. Ahmed Nobah, chairperson of the 3-D printing and visualization track at the ICRM 2020, said: “3-D printing was introduced for the first time as a scientific track during the 2017 Radiation in Medicine Symposium and Workshops organized by KFSHRC (King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, in Riyadh).” “This year, virtual reality (VR) technology was introduced for the first time as another important advanced 3-D visualization tool in medicine,” added Nobah, a medical physicist in the radiation oncology physics department at KFSHRC. “VR can be used to provide surgeons with clear visualization for the case before the operation. It can also be used as an educational tool for medical residents to learn anatomy and visualize medical images in 3-D space different than conventional medical visualization monitors.” He pointed out that implementing 3-D printing in hospitals moved the health sector “closer to the new era of personalized medicine, in which the printed tools are customized/designed per patient according to his/her specific requirements.” Nobah anticipated a thriving future for Saudi Arabia in implementing the latest technologies in its health care system. “A new initiative (by KFSHRC) called Young Investigator is to be announced, through which young investigators will work on clinically oriented projects and be part of the technological development in the field of medicine,” he added. The ICRM is the largest conference in the Middle East on radiation medicine and has been organized by the KFSHRC in collaboration with Alfaisal University, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Saudi Society of Medical Radiologic Technology, in partnership with other institutions in Riyadh.