Elections IFMBE General Assembly in Nice

The IFMBE General Assembly met in conjunction with the world congress in Nice on 19 September 1997 . There were nearly 100 voting delegates present which was a very good number when considering that there are little over 40 member societies in the IFMBE, each with 1-4 voting delegates, depending on their size.

A slate of candidates for the various positions that had to filled had been prepared by the Nominating Committee. This process started in early 1997 when the IFMBE Secretariat called for nominations for the vacant positions in the IFMBE Administrative Council and in the Boards of the two IFMBE Divisions, namely Clinical Engineering and Healthcare Technology Assessment. This time the member societies were lazy! Too few candidates were put forward for the officer positions. Therefore, the committee had to add names to the slate in order to give the delegates enough choice. This of course is one of the reasons for having a Nominating Committee, i.e. to make sure that a balanced slate is produced as a basis for voting by the delegates.

The membership of the Nominating Committee was as follows: Niilo Saranummi, Finland (chair), H.K. Chang, Hong Kong, Hiroshi Kanai, Japan, Robert Nerem, USA, Ronny Panerai, UK, Basil Proimos, Greece, Nandor Richter, Hungary, and Orest Roy, Canada. Additionally, the chairmen of the two divisions, Nicolas Pallikarakis and Jan Persson, assisted the committee in matters relating to these divisions.

In Rio de Janeiro 1994, the delegates complained that there was not enough time for them to acquaint themselves with the candidates. To avoid this, a document with the candidates and their CV was prepared beforehand and mailed to the voting delegates. Additionally, this document was put on the IFMBE Web-server.

In the General Assembly the voting proceeded in the predetermined order. First, the Vice-President (President-Elect), then the Secretary-General, the Treasurer and finally ordinary members of the IFMBE Administrative Council. The vacant positions on the two divisional boards were then filled and finally the IFMBE voted on the site of the 2003 world congress. Candidates that were present were given a few minutes each to introduce themselves before voting. In following Section shows the results of the election.

Administrative Council

President

There is no election of President. This was done three years ago when Jean-Pierre Morucci (France) was elected Vice-President (President-Elect). After Nice he automatically succeeded Fumihiko Kajiya (Japan) as the IFMBE President with Professor Kajiya as the Immediate Past-President, also remaining on the IFMBE Administrative Council.

Vice-President (President-Elect)

Originally there were three candidates. However, Peter Rolfe (UK) withdrew his candidacy a week before the meeting. Dov Jaron (USA) was elected with 74 votes with Helmut Hutten (A) receiving 21 votes.

Secretary-General

The votes between the two candidates for this position split as follows: Heikki Terio (S) was elected with 52 votes with Janie Fouke (USA) receiving 42 votes. There was one empty ballot.

Treasurer

For this position there was only one candidate, Mladen Poluta (South Africa), who was elected unanimously.

Ordinary Members of the IFMBE Administrative Council

Ordinarily four persons are elected each for a 6-year term. This time, as both Dov Jaron and Mladen Poluta were already members of the Administrative Council, this meant that two additional persons were to be elected to fill the remaining 3-year terms vacated by these two persons. In total, six persons were to be elected. Of those six, the two receiving the lowest number of votes will serve a 3-year term only.

Those elected for the full 6-year term were Janie Fouke (USA) with 63 votes, Jos Spaan (Netherlands) with 48 votes, Walter Chang (China, Taipei) with 40 votes, and Joe Barbenel (UK) with 38 votes. Antonio Infantosi (Brazil) and Joachim Nagel (Germany) both with 36 votes were elected for the 3-year terms.

The other candidates received votes as follows: Marcello Bracale (Italy) 33 votes, Shmuel Einav (Israel) 20 votes, Didier Geiger (France) 27 votes, Peter Kneppo (Slovakia) 10 votes, Damijan Miklavcic (Slovenia) 27 votes, Maciej Nalecz (Poland) 31 votes, Nicolas Pallikarakis (Greece) 35 votes, Sang-Hui Park (Korea) 24 votes, and Takayuki Tsuji (Japan) 31 votes.

IFMBE Administrative Council 1997-2000

Clinical Engineering

There were four vacant seats on the Board. The following persons were elected: Guan-Liang Chang (China, Taipei) 54 votes, Joe Bronzino (USA) 51 votes, Per Loubjerg Denmark) 43 votes, and Noriaki Ono (Japan) 43 votes.

The other candidates received the following number of votes: David Adler (Israel) 32, Ulf Boström (Sweden) 40, and Saide Jorge Calil (Brazil) 32.

Afterwards the new board convened and elected Peter Heimann (South Africa) as their new chairman.

Board of Clinical Engineering Division 1997-2000

Healthcare technology assessment

There were four vacant seats on the Board. Originally there were seven candidates. However, at the last minute, Steli Loznen (Israel) withdrew his candidacy. The following persons were elected: Marcello Bracale (Italy) 62 votes, R.N. Tremewan (Australia) 58 votes, Samuel Sideman (Israel) 55 votes, and Helmut Hutten (Austria) 51 votes.

The other candidates received the following number of votes: Herman Gilly (Austria) 38 and Vladimir Pribik (Czech Republic) 43.

Board of the Healthcare Technology Assessment Division 1997-2000

2003 World Congress site

There were four sites competing - Hong Kong, Ljubljana, Seoul, and Sydney. The selection is made by combining the votes of both IFMBE and IOMP on equal weights. After summing up the percentages, the winning site was Sydney, Australia.

Niilo Saranummi

Chairman Nominating Committee

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