Last year, 2005, proved challenging for many of us. On behalf of the Association, we hope that you have all started 2006 with new thoughts, and strength, to work for a very successful and rewarding year! Council is looking forward to meeting most of you at the annual meeting in Basel, and offers all of you its very best wishes!
As in previous years, we are using this Newsletter to bring you up to date regarding the general affairs of the Association following the meeting of Council held in Padua in January. It is our belief, and aspiration, that the Association should really matter to all who read this message, including those paediatric cardiologists, surgeons, and related specialists who have not yet determined to become members!
The European Union has now grown by the addition of 10 new member countries. This fact raises questions how these new countries will be integrated in the Union within an acceptable time. The integration creates challenges, which need solutions. Professional associations can play important roles in the process of integration. The Association for European Paediatric Cardiology is working hard to get European recommendations for training in Paediatric Cardiology implemented in all European countries, thus ensuring the highest professional quality in our discipline throughout the continent. Special training courses have now been established for our members and their colleagues still in training. We have arranged that the most experienced specialists in the field will provide the teaching for these courses. The first course will be held in Budapest, and will be held in March, 2006. We now extend an invitation to all our members to ask and encourage their young colleagues in training to attend these exceptional courses.
We are now preparing to unveil a European examination in Paediatric Cardiology. Such an examination concentrating on echocardiography of congenital cardiac malformations will be held, for the very first time, during the Euro-echo meeting, which will take place in Prague, in December, 2006. Luc Mertens, together with André Bozio and Mats Mellander, has been mandated by Council to develop this examination, using the help offered by the board of the new Association for Echocardiography under the umbrella of the European Society for Cardiology. The Council invites all colleagues to take advantage of the possibility successfully to complete the examination. At this stage, there is no legal demand for practitioners successfully to have taken such an examination. Council believes, however, that in the very near future the successful completion of such an examination will become mandatory for those wishing to practise in permanent positions with Europe.
More than ever, there is a strong need to provide similar levels of education, equivalent standards of professional training, and common continuous education, in the fields of our daily activity. Harmonisation is now essential, not so much for today, but certainly for the future. Our Association has the responsibility of representing the specialty of Paediatric Cardiology in Brussels at the Union of European Medical Specialists. Although our Association remains the only professional and well-structured society for Paediatric Cardiology existing anywhere in the world, paediatric cardiology itself has not yet become recognised as a mono-speciality by the political bodies in most European countries. For this reason, as an Association we need the constant support of our members. Such support can be provided by lobbying for paediatric cardiology as a specialty in your own countries, and providing the Council with new ideas for future activities. One good way to influence the future development in our Association is to participate in the activities of the working groups. The more active you become as members, the more attractive and efficient will our Association be.
With this in mind, we would remind all of you that one essential way of supporting the Association is to make sure that you have paid your annual dues. It is surprising how easy it is for members to forget this simple duty. We also encourage all of you to convince your colleagues, who may not yet be members of the Association, to join. Instructions on how to become a member are to be found in the web site under the banner “Membership Information”. It is now an easy matter to apply for membership using the web page. And remember that membership now carries the added benefit of subscription to “Cardiology in the Young”!
Annual Meeting of the Association in 2006
The annual meeting for 2006 will be held in Basel from May 24 through 27.
The Swiss Society for Paediatric Cardiology, together with the Scientific Secretary, Shakeel Qureshi, and the professional congress organiser AKM, has prepared an interesting program for you all. We owe them our thanks for all the efforts they have taken to provide a rewarding meeting. We count on seeing you there in great numbers, and we hope you will bring many junior colleagues and friends. Come and enjoy an active scientific atmosphere, see your friends, exchange ideas, thoughts and knowledge, but also spend some enjoyable time together with your colleagues.
We will again award prizes for the best posters of the meeting. Two of the prizes will be especially dedicated to junior fellows less than 38-years old. We look forward to see many attractive posters, with an important scientific content. The abstracts and posters will be considered for prizes by a panel of judges. The prizes will be awarded in a ceremony during our Gala Dinner.
We hope that you are all aware of the schedule for the meeting. Registration forms are available on the internet for on-line registration. No abstract will be published if the first author has not registered for the meeting. Should you need more information, or help while registering, please consult our website, or contact the professional congress organiser in Basel:
AKM Administrative Secretariat
41st AEPC 2006
c/o AKM Congress Service
Claratrasse 57, P.O. Box
CH-4005 Basel
Switzerland
Mr. Koeb: “t.koeb@akm.ch”; http://www.akm.ch/AEPC2006/;
Tel: +41 61 686 77 11
Fax: +41 61 686 77 88
E-mail: info@akm.ch
The training course, shown to have been very successful in former annual meetings, has been organised this year by our working group for Imaging. It will take place on Wednesday, May 23.
All our working groups will again organise scientific sessions during the annual meeting, and provide all attendees with interesting and important scientific and practical data. These sessions, along with the teaching course, were very much appreciated in Munich and in Copenhagen, and also in previous meetings. Because of this, Council has opted to maintain this role of the working groups in the programme. So as to accommodate all the programmes from the different groups, however, and in order to provide sufficient time for the abstracts sessions, it has been necessary to continue to have some sessions running in parallel.
Junior members will again have their own social programme. Junior members, along with any juniors who would like to become members of the Association, should make contact with Heynric Grotenhuis and his colleagues, who have organised a meeting specifically for the Junior members on Thursday evening. Details are again available on the website of the Association (www.aepc.org)
Business Meeting of the Association
Important political and professional issues will be discussed at the Annual Business Meeting, which will be held on Friday 26th of May. The members will receive the agenda of the Business meeting in good time prior to the meeting.
Communications
In order to maintain regular contact, it is crucial that we know your address.
Some of the addresses, and especially e-mails, change regularly. Please make sure that any changes are communicated to the Secretary-General. We can keep you supplied with new information only if we know your correct address. Surface mailing has become extremely costly and unreliable, and is also very labour intensive. Because of this, we will use e-mail addresses for all future regular communications.
Website
Our new user-friendly website was opened last year. As already discussed, it is now possible to apply for membership on-line. On-line payment of the annual dues will be implemented in 2006. During the course of the year, all members who have paid their annual fee will obtain a password for access to protected areas of the web site. Using this password, it will be an easy matter to correct personal information. New services will be added to the protected areas at the end of the year.
News from the Treasurer
The annual subscription should be paid before April 30. Members should, by now, have received an invoice requesting the transmission of information concerning credit cards on the “yellow form” to the treasurer via mail, or requesting payment via bank transfer to the account UBS No. 240-210449.70V. In the future, as discussed above, we establish the mechanisms for on-line payment of the annual fees.
All members who had paid their annual contributions will receive “Cardiology in the Young”, along with the supplements. If you have not paid your dues in 2004 or 2005, however, or if you were in arrears prior to those years, you will not continue to receive the journal. Please pay now, today, and not tomorrow! And those who might be in arrears should note that they are also required to pay any outstanding dues. Dues have been set at 150 euros for ordinary members, 80 euros for junior members, and 80 euros for senior and honorary members if they want to receive the journal and be in communication via e-mail.
The annual membership fee for one working group has been included in the overall annual fee. All members are asked to choose the working group of their choice. If members wish to belong to more than one working group, this should be communicated to the group, and an additional fee of 20 euros should be paid. Based on the number of members, each working group will receive a financial contribution from Council permitting them to invite one or two speakers, who are not members of the Association, to attend and speak at the Annual Meeting, thus providing “inside views” of their special field of research. The financial situation of the Association sadly does not permit the Council to invite speakers directly on behalf of the Working Groups. It was, and still is, the task of each Working Group to provide continuous education to their members and the Society, and to find the financial resources needed for this. A small society needs the strong input and help of all its members in order to fulfil its duties.
New members in 2006
The Association has received 58 applications for ordinary and junior membership (Table 1). Any members who wish to comment on the list should make contact with the Secretary-General before the end of April. The Council has seen and approved all these applications, and proposes the election of these colleagues as Junior or Ordinary members, respectively.
Table 1.
Recommendations of Working Groups
The working group for Imaging has provided the Council with recommendations for training in magnetic resonance imaging. These proposals will shortly be circulated, and a vote to adopt them will be taken at the Annual Business Meeting. If approved, the recommendations will be published in “Cardiology in the Young”.
Training Courses and Symposiums
Courses and symposiums organised by members of the association that involve international partici-pation can now be evaluated and approved by the European Board of Accreditation http://www.ebaccme.org/newsite/index.php. Such quality control is becoming more and more important, not only for personal recognition, but also for recognition and accreditation of the centres organising continuous medical education. The instructions regarding application can be found through a link on our website (www.aepc.org), or directly through the web address shown above. Our Association is represented on the board of accreditation.
Proposals for new officers in the Council
The members have proposed Gerald Tulzer, from Linz, Austria, to become a new member of Council. In the absence of any proposals from the members for the position of president-elect, Council proposes André Bozio, from Lyon, France, for this prestigious position.
In closing, we invite you again to join us at the Annual Meeting in Basel, sharing your proposals, ideas, and wishes with all the members of the Council.
