2020 was, without a doubt, a very challenging year for all of us in all fields. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the course of almost everything we do, and this was no different within AO Spine.

Although our current projects have been evolving, much has been disrupted by the impossibility to carry out face-to-face activities. Had it been possible, a Global Spine Congress would have been held in Rio de Janeiro. However, we strive to learn from hardship and remained focused, leveraging our strengths.

Our online activities were as active as ever, with a record number of participants (2905) in 20 webinars throughout the year. In order to offer our community the widest range of options during these uncertain times, we seek to evolve through new, more interactive formats and new educational tools as well as improve those which are already our hallmarks. We were also able to finalize a more structured educational framework for web-based events which enables the sequencing of these activities and provides a progressive learning curve in the various areas of spinal pathologies.

With so many online events taking place, AO Spine developed a pioneer faculty training program called Digital Education Training (DET). The pilot program was a cross-division experience, as faculty from AO Trauma and AO Spine were invited to join this challenging project tailored to faculty’s needs and aimed to improve their online performance in their educational roles.

Let us not forget our Continuing Education Program (our regional diploma), which had a second call for registration as, due to the pandemic, AO Spine understood the need for promotion at a regional level of flexible, high quality learning processes.

The Hospital Based Seminars (HBS) were also adapted to an online format, becoming a very attractive educational offer. The commitment of colleagues from all over our region helped to maintain and foster the educational proposal for residents and fellows. During last year we held 40 hospital-based seminars, 37 of which were online (29 were originally planned as face-to-face events). We would also like to thank our HBS task force members and highlight their effort and commitment. They worked very diligently this year on creating and improving scientific material for this event format.

We were also able to participate and hold online sessions in two national societies’ virtual congress, keeping close contact with these entities and promoting our unique teaching model.

We have made progress in finalizing the curriculum for our specimen courses and simulation courses (Hospital Based Courses), which were expected to be launched this year, but have been postponed until further notice.

We continue to learn and to maintain our educational proposal in order to retain leadership in our region. We believe 2021 will be brighter and we will be able to keep sharing even more experiences and knowledge.