Editorial

A lot seems to have been happening in the world of ultrasound since the previous newsletter. As you will see from the article from Lucas Greiner and Kurt Jäger, the WFUMB meeting in Seoul, South Korea, was very successful and our congratulations must go to Byung Ihn Choi and his team for organising a most excellent meeting. Prior to that, the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine had held their meeting in Washington. This, again, is always an excellent meeting, with a combination of new ideas and refreshers. This year, the institute made Kurt Jäger a Fellow of its institute. This is a great honour and our congratulations go to Kurt for what is now worldwide recognition of his position in ultrasound.

On the subject of WFUMB, at its council meeting in Seoul, it was confirmed that the WFUMB meeting in 2011 will be in Vienna. The more astute of you will notice that the meeting has been brought forward from 2012, as it has been decided that, in future, WFUMB meetings will be every two years, rather than every three years, as in the past. Our congratulations go to the team from Vienna for the hard work they have already put into this, but I'm sure there is much more to be done to achieve a successful meeting in 2011.

The choice of Seoul for the 2006 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology Congress was made in 1999, and it was quite clear to all concerned, on arriving at the Congress, that the time had been spent very profitably organising a most comprehensive meeting. The meeting itself was preceded by International Breast Ultrasound Society and Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Society Symposia on the Saturday and Sunday. These were very well received, particularly the hands-on musculoskeletal sessions. The companies all exhibited the best they have to offer. They shared the exhibition hall with an open space, where, during most of the conference, there was a stream of demonstrations of Korean crafts, dancing, and music. At first sight it would seem somewhat incongruous to have these side by side, but certainly it worked very well and many delegates enjoyed the ability to sample some of the Korean culture alongside the technical exhibitions. The social highlight of the conference was a banquet, with some most excellent performances of Korean opera, fan dancing, and a spectacular demonstration of Korean drum music set in a modern idiom, with chefs beating on wooden blocks, rather than the more traditional drums.

Many who attended said this was one of the most spectacular meetings they had ever attended and I would agree entirely with that. The science was of the highest order, attention to detail was immaculate, and social events made everyone feel they had truly sampled Korea. The President of the Organising Committee, Byung Ihn Choi, and his team had made very good use of the seven years' run up to this meeting and I know from talking to some of the team from Australia, who are due to organise the meeting in 2009, they felt this would be a very difficult act to follow.

David W. Pilling

Editor EFSUMB Newsletter