National Secretaries met in AmsterdamNearly three years have already passed since the current National Secretaries Committee (NSC) members met in connection with the world congress in Rio de Janeiro and only a few months remain until we meet at the next World Congress on Medical Engineering and Medical Physics in Nice, 14 - 19 September 1997. During this period, the NSC has met twice. The first meeting took place in Netanya, Israel, in conjunction with the 7th Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering, 17th September, 1995. Our last meeting took place in Amsterdam, 1st November 1996, in conjunction with the 18th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. The meeting was chaired by Professor Makoto Kikuchi and co-chaired by Professor Marc Nyssen. This meeting was attended by 27 NSC members including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, USA and IEEE/EMBS. Additionally, the participation of colleagues from Chile was highly appreciated, as was hearing the status of biomedical engineering in their country. Also, most of the Administrative Council members of IFMBE attended the meeting. As the chairman, I was a little bit afraid that someone felt it was a bad mistake to hold the NSC meeting at an IEEE/EMBS conference. The size of the conference was likely to make it difficult or even impossible to find time for a meeting like this. Fortunately, I was wrong as the attendance was very high at 64% (27 out of 42 members). At the Israel meeting in 1995 the attendance was much poorer, only 33 % (14/42). Professor Marcello Bracale (past chairman and founder of the NSC and secretary of the Italian society), was very regretfully not able to attend this meeting. However, he wrote me a letter in which he said, 'I will be grateful if you can express to the NSC, the regret of AIIMB for the lack of news and information within the Federation. I wish to underline that the Federation is only the umbrella for the Member Societies which are the lymph, the life and the real reason for the institute of the Federation itself. If there is inadequate exchange of communication between Member Societies through the National Secretaries Committee, the Secretariat of the Federation and the Administrative Council, I have serious doubts on the benefit of the Federation in the Biomedical Engineering field'. Based on his comments, we discussed what the member societies really want to receive from IFMBE, and how we can effectively realise the adequate exchange of communication between member societies. I will distribute the minutes of this meeting to the national secretaries soon. Please get in touch with your own national secretary and get to know what the IFMBE does for its members. I look forward to seeing you and receiving your inputs in Nice!!! MAKOTO KIKUCHI, JAPAN | ||