Old and New EFSUMB Officers

Table of Contents

New EFSUMB officers had to be elected during the General Assembly in Geneva, on 29th September last year. The unanimous voting followed the proposals of the Executive Bureau, and we can welcome - as highly renowned international experts in clinical ultrasonography - Prof. Dr. Norbert Gritzmann, radiologist, from Austria as President Elect, and Dr. Pietro Pavlica, radiologist, from Italy, as Honorary Treasurer. The Honorary Secretary was re-elected for a second period. We are greatly indebted to the former officers who have been substituted by now according to our constitution, and a special word of acknowledgement for all the work of Prof. Michel Claudon from France as former (Past-)President and Prof. Niels Juul from Denmark as former treasurer for the last nine and six years is really deserved. This is even the more true and needed for the abundant workload and excellent performance in any respect for the by now Past President, Prof. Kurt Jäger, from Switzerland, who among other milestone activities successfully achieved the fusion of our official scientific journal - The European Journal of Ultrasound - with Ultraschall in der Medizin.

 

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Changes to the EFSUMB Constitution and to the bylaws

The General Assembly in Geneva on the 25th September, was the right time and situation to discuss and vote on some changes to the constitution of our Federation, This holds true as well for the changes in the Bylaws to be decided on by the Board of Directors Meeting in Geneva on the 24th September.

Since changing the legal basis of our activities is a serious matter, the processing of these modifications was discussed carefully and repeatedly at the Executive Bureau sessions. These preparations turned out to highly effective since all the changes proposed were accepted after short discussions by all the delegates. Going into all details would be too time consuming - so only two modifications to the Constitution will be focused on, and the bylaw changes will be summarized. Details are given in the minutes (protocols) of the General Assembly and the Board of Directors Meeting handed to each delegate and available from your national representative on request.

The changes of the Constitution comprise - as most important topic - a reduction of the periods of office from hitherto three to now two years. This is certainly a remarkable change in the life and "bio-rhythm" of our Federation, and it was felt that the pros would by far outweigh the cons. Moreover, the changes to the Constitution allow from now membership within EFSUMB not only for multidisciplinary national societies of ultrasound, but also for other societies subgroups promoting the application of ultrasound. This means an opening to a closer cooperation with other organizations dealing with ultrasonography with our Federation functioning as an "umbrella society".

The changes of the bylaws follow - in the sense of how to carry out the constitutional rules - their renewal concerning the new two-year-terms. In addition, some modifications were accepted concerning our Federation's Newsletter, the Young Investigators Award, the composition of the Publications Committee, and Euroson School activities.

 

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Development of Membership

As a whole, EFSUMB is a flourishing enterprise with a steady increase in members, at the time being as a total number comprising 18639 members, with the following distribution:

Austria 872

Belgium 278

Bulgaria 105

Croatia 67

Czech Rep 40

Denmark 689

Finland 270

France 193

Germany 6488

Greece 101

Hungary 48

Israel 101

Italy 1755

Latvia 152

Macedonia 19

Netherlands 47

Norway 225

Poland 1200

Portugal 63

Romania 300

Russia 106

Slovak Rep 40

Slovenia 108

Spain 177

Sweden 115

Switzerland 2593

Turkey 157

UK 2330

Some national societies, however, develop better than others with respect to their number of individual members, their scientific and educational activities and their representation within EFSUMB. The Executive Bureau gave expression to its hope that those national societies with a stable or maybe even declining number of members should be able to turn around such unwanted developments, and EFSUMB offers all possible support. Applications for membership of the EFSUMB family were approved by the Board of Directors from the Turkish Society of Medical Ultrasonography and from the Macedonian Ultrasound Society, and both had a friendly and warm welcome.

On behalf of our active secretary, Mrs. Gianna Stanford, and as an urgent wish of all Executive Bureau members, we kindly ask (again and again) all members as a whole and especially the secretaries of each national society to provide us with as many active email member addresses as possible (and who is nowadays without an email address?).

Finally, a society as well as a federation is as much alive as are its members - so please do not hesitate to communicate with us, and do not forget our nice new website www.efsumb.org!

Lucas Greiner, MD

Honorary Secretary EFSUMB