Danish Society for Biomedical Engineering 1973 – 199825-year anniversaryOn 27 November, 1998 the Danish Society for Biomedical Engineering celebrated its 25-year anniversary. The event was prepared during more than a year by inviting researchers from universities and industry to write a paper about their activities in the past, at present and their thoughts about future. This activity has resulted in a booklet “Aspects of Biomedical Engineering in Denmark” (154 pages). It was published just before the anniversary. It is still available from the secretary of the society (the cost is DKK 100). An abbreviated version of Professor Annelise Rosenfalck’s paper in our anniversary booklet will be published int he next issue of IFMBE News. Furthermore, a contest was initiated where researchers in Denmark were asked to submit an abstract for evaluation. The society received 24 abstracts. Six of these were selected for presentation at the anniversary conference. Finally, an anniversary conference to be held 27 November, 1998 was arranged. The subject was: Has biomedical engineering a future in Denmark? The invited speakers came from the parliament, hospitals, universities and the industry. After the contest and the conference an anniversary dinner was arranged. The day of the anniversaryAbout 70 people participated in the anniversary activities. Of the six selected papers three were awarded with DKK 10.000, 5.000 and 3.000 respectively. Abstracts of all six papers are now available on our homepage. First prize: Sten Oyre, Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery T, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Sygehus. Development, evaluation and application of the three-dimensional paraboloid MRI method for determination of blood flow, wall shear stress and cross sectional lumen vessel area Second prize: Peter Munk, Center for Fast Ultrasound Imaging, Department of Information Technology, Technical University of Denmark. Measurement of the blood velocity vector using ultrasound Third prize: Svetoslav Nikolov, Center for Fast Ultrasound Imaging, Department of Information Technology, Technical University of Denmark. An approach for three-dimensional real-time ultrasound imaging The conferenceThe first speaker of the conference was Lone Dybkjær, member of the European Parliament. Lone Dybkjær was one of the initiators of our society! Next followed a series of speakers discussing biomedical engineering – the relationship between the technique, the biomedical engineer, the medical profession and the industry – education and research. Without doubt, the general opinion was that biomedical engineering has a future in Denmark! On the other hand it was mentioned that we may not see very large Danish biomedical companies established in the future – we should expect that several new, small, innovative companies will be the core of Danish biomedical engineering. Our present President, Professor Hans Stødkilde-Jørgensen rounded up the conference and our past president, Professor Annelise Rosenfalck, known within the IFMBE and European Research Programs, gave excellent dinner speeches. A very tired, but happy society board, could, after all these activities start preparing new society activities for the year to come. Secretary of Danish Society for Biomedical Engineering | ||