Welcome from the new IFMBE President

Dear Colleagues,

In accordance with the decision of the General Assembly of the IFMBE at the Rio World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering that elected me to be the President of this Federation from Nice until the next World Congress in Chicago in 2000 and I will do my best to prove worthy of your vote of confidence for the coming three years. First, I wish to thank Robert Nerem and Niilo Saranummi to have facilitated my integration inside the administrative council during the period 1991-1994. I have learnt a lot thanks to their active support and clairvoyance. To work as Vice-President between 1994 and 1997 with Fumihiko Kajiya was very fruitful and pleasant and I am very conscious of the challenge to take the succession of such a president and friend. And I am happy to continue to work with him as the Immediate Past-President and chairman of the Nominating Committee.

I am well aware of the importance and difficulty in steering such an international organisation all the more because, two key positions have changed: Jos Spaan has resigned as Secretary General and I lose, by this fact, the fantastic efficiency and support of Marijke Lensing. Happily, Jos comes back as a member of the Administrative Council and will be, as chairman of the Constitution and By Laws Committee the keeper of our traditions and rules. The transition between Amsterdam and Stockholm will take surely some time but I am totally confident in our new Secretary General Heikki Terio, who has said to me to have a clone of Marijke in his lab. The transfer of the responsibilities between Richard Kirsner, past Treasurer, and Mladen Poluta the new Treasurer will be easier, due to the experience of Mladen as a past AC member. Richard remains with us in the Finance Committee and we will profit of his experience.

I have enjoyed my contacts with the friends who have the AC at the end of their term, Antonio Giannella-Neto, Makoto Kikuchi, Colin Roberts and Max Schaldach and I have appreciated that some of them have accepted to participate in our different structures. Welcome to the new members Joe C. Barbenel, Walter H. Chang, Janie Fouke, Antonio F. Infantosi, and Joachim Nagel within our Administrative Council. The first meeting of the new elected Administrative Council in Nice gave the opportunity to integrate these new members in the different committees, divisions and working groups of the federation. It is a very nice tradition that all the "ancients" accept not to leave totally the federation after their mandate and continue to support and work with the "news". For example Masao Saito, Jack Hopps, and Nandor Richter have faced a fantastic challenge in publishing for, the Nice meeting, the History of the IFMBE. Additionally, Niilo Saranummi, our past president takes the chair of the Publication and Publicity Committee, remaining editor of IFMBE News and Robert Nerem is the key person for managing our International Academy.

The structures and the people responsible for them helping Dov Jaron, the new President elect and myself, to face our responsibilities are listed below. Additionally, to take care of the wishes expressed during the General Assembly in Nice, two ad-hoc committees have been established.

Additionally, a task group for the History of the Federation has been established. It would be a pity not to pursue the remarkable work of Jack Hopps, Masao Saito and Nandor Richter. Richard Kirsner and Colin Roberts have accepted to work with them for an actualisation and why not for a new edition of the history for Chicago 2000.

To lead and monitor these ongoing activities during the coming three years, all these chairmen and liaison officers need your help, your comments and your suggestions. Don't hesitate to contact them, we need your input. Personally and with the help of all you, I wish to focus on three types of actions.

1. Working with Keith Boddy and Fumihiko Kajiya, respectively President and Vice President of IUPESM (International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine) to become a full member of ICSU (International Council of Scientific Union) and to obtain international recognition of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics.
2. Increasing the number of member societies. People from 15 countries which do not belong to the Federation have attended the Nice meeting.
3. Doing the necessary to ensure that our Federation can consolidate its identity in co-operation with IEEE/EMBS during the preparation of the Chicago 2000 Congress and when it is held.

Finally, I will do my best to meet your expectations and to help, support and facilitate the tasks and the missions of the different divisions and committees.

Jean-Pierre Morucci - President of IFMBE

*To reinforce the link between of the different nations belonging to the federation and the administrative committee, to facilitate the routing of information towards and from the AC, and to find the way for a better exchange between all our structures.

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