December 2009 - EDINBURGH - UK – Report of The President of EFSUMB to the Board of Directors' Meeting

Prof Norbert Gritzmann
EFSUMB
President 2007–2009

The membership of EFSUMB increases steadily and will soon reach 20.000 members, making EFSUMB one of the biggest interdisciplinary medical societies. Also our financial situation allows us to support further educational activities. One major aim is to concentrate on the individual benefits of being an EFSUMB member. We have created a leaflet that summarizes the individual benefits of being an EFSUMB member and each participant of EUROSON 2009 will receive this.

In May EUROSON 2008 was held in Timisoara in the western part of Romania. With a total number of more than 2000 participants this congress which was held in conjunction with the meeting of the Romanian Ultrasound society was a tremendous success. Ioan Sporea and his team really organised a remarkable event. I want to thank him and all of his team for doing such a great and successful job. We all were impressed be the generous hospitality of the Romanian organisers. Both the Romanian ultrasound society and EFSUMB have supported young authors. To encourage young scientists to present innovative papers the congress fee was waived for all accepted first authors below 35years.

As we know Ultrasound Congresses are going to have a more educational background. At the same time new science will be presented especially dealing with contrast agents. In this area ultrasound gets a giant boost.

Another big success is our scientific journal European Journal Ultrasound /Ultraschall in der Medizin. Due to the efforts of the Editors, the Review Board and especially of the publishing scientists, the impact factor of the journal continues to rise and is now 2.394, the highest number for a multidisciplinary ultrasound journal. I really hope that we can continue with this success and EFSUMB will support the journal whenever possible.

Another major event was the presentation of the new version of the guidelines for contrast enhanced sonography in the first issue of UiM/EJU by the EFSUMB study group for USCA. It was decided to re-evaluate the guidelines at least every three years. President Elect Christian NolsÞe will steer this group.

The style of the newsletter and the homepage of EFSUMB have changed and a case of the month was introduced in the EFSUMB website. This has been often visited by our members. Michael Bachmann Nielsen of Denmark takes care of this important publication and communication medium. Michael also chairs the Publication Committee. A case of the month has been introduced; this publication is frequently visited on our homepage. Prof. Christoph F Dietrich edits the case of the month on our website.

One important goal will be to optimise the communication with our members, so the National Societies are asked to provide email addresses of all their members. Up to now we have about 6000 email addresses; I do hope that this number can be increased within the next year.

EFSUMB offers a membership certificate to all the member of the National Societies each year. On demand each national society can obtain a bulk supply of personalised certificates for all their members. We have produced a EFSUMB folder in which all important facts, history, congresses meetings and publications have been summarised. This folder can be downloaded from our homepage.

EFSUMB introduced a new series of EUROSON Schools regarding contrast enhanced ultrasound. H.P. Weskott organised two courses of this series in Hannover. These highly specialised educational courses proved to be a big success with more than 80 participants per course. This new type of courses is supported by BRACCO. For 2010 a new contract with BRACCO has been signed.

The Education and Professional Standards Committee was very active last year so that guidelines and recommendations for education in nearly all areas of ultrasound have been published. These guidelines are often the basis for the national guidelines of the member societies.

EFSUMB is going to publish a European Ultrasound Course Book. Prof Dietrich will be the editor of this publication.

The continuous work of the safety committee (ECMUS) reviewing the literature regarding safety aspects of ultrasound is of significant importance to all of us to enable us to practice this technique safely. However, since new techniques like contrast techniques are spreading into daily routine, we have to be even more alert to potential side effects.

The Committee has recommended that Doppler ultrasound examinations should not be used routinely in the first trimester of pregnancy.

EUROSON 2009 is held in conjunction with the British Medical Ultrasound Society in Edinburgh from 6 -8 of December 2009. I am convinced that we have organised an interesting congress with educational and scientific highlights. Again EFSUMB wants to support young scientists to present their papers by reducing or waiving their Congress fee and by holding the Young Investigator's Award at the EUROSON congress. I do hope that this congress will be well attended and will continue to be one in a successful line of EUROSON congresses.

Another important task is the replacement of our General Secretary Gianna Stanford. She will retire after the Edinburgh congress. It is well known that Gianna did an excellent job over thirteen years and she did much more for our society that could be expected. Thank you Gianna for all yours efforts you provided for our Society.

We have found a new General Secretary Lynne Rudd and we welcome her on board of the EFSUMB ship. To ensure a smooth hand over Gianna and Lynne have been working together since September 2009.In Edinburgh a new Executive Bureau and new committee members will be elected.

Building up a European Ultrasound Community is a very important task for all of us and we try to do our best in promoting science and education in ultrasound.

Best regards

Norbert Gritzmann
EFSUMB President