For four days Wrocław became a meeting point for Polish physicians and researchers from around the world. Young science had its own place in the programme of the 13th Congress of the Polish Medical Diaspora — researchers from Wroclaw Medical University were given a dedicated scientific session.

The 13th Congress of the Polish Medical Diaspora took place in Wrocław on 9–12 September. It opened in the Leopoldina Hall of the University of Wrocław, with the following days held at the Wrocław Congress Centre next to the Centennial Hall. The event was organised by the Federation of Polish Medical Organisations Abroad, with Wroclaw Medical University acting as host and one of its principal academic partners. The Congress was held under the theme „Medical Innovations and Patient Welfare.”

The young researchers’ session

The session devoted to research carried out at our University was chaired by Prof. Julita Kulbacka and Dr Wojciech Szlasa. The following early-career researchers and clinicians presented their projects:

• Julia Maj, MD — on a holistic approach to patients with cardiac disease,
• Karolina Tądel, MSc — on the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare and in everyday hospital practice,
• Dr Tomasz Urbaniak — on modern approaches to the treatment of non-healing wounds and biomimetic strategies for tissue repair,
• Dr Olga Michel — on liposomes and their application in the treatment of SARS-CoV,
• Dr Zofia Łapińska — on electrochemotherapy in ovarian cancer,
• Dr Wojciech Szlasa — on the development of modern lymphoma therapies, including CAR-T cells.

Taken together, the topics illustrate how broad the research carried out by young WMU teams has become: from cardiology and the digital transformation of healthcare, through regenerative medicine and nanotechnology, to experimental oncology and cell-based therapies.

Why a congress like this is a must for early-career physicians

The Congress of the Polish Medical Diaspora is one of very few events that brings together, in one place, Polish medical professionals working at leading academic and clinical centres worldwide. The Scientific Committee was chaired by Prof. Maria Siemionow from Chicago — a microsurgeon and transplant specialist of international standing, who led the team that performed the first near-total face transplant in the United States. The programme also featured sessions addressed directly to students and early-career physicians, covering international career pathways, residency training, scientific publishing and grant applications, with experts representing institutions such as the University of Oxford, Mayo Clinic, the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

For anyone planning a career at an international level, this is a setting that is hard to reproduce anywhere else. You can speak directly with people who have already taken that path — ask about recruitment to a centre abroad, about what research work actually looks like in another system, about how to build a collaboration that does not require relocating. Contacts made on such occasions pay off for years: sometimes as a joint publication, sometimes as a fellowship, sometimes as an invitation to join a grant consortium. That is reason enough to keep the next edition in your calendar.

Find out more:

• WMU coverage: https://www.umw.edu.pl/en/node/25014
• Congress website: https://kongrespoloniimedycznej.org/