| UK news The BES is dead: long live the IPEMBIt was an historic moment for the Biological Engineering Society (BES), the UK National Member Society of the IFMBE, when on 13 September 1995, at their annual business meeting, the President proposed the final resolutions which closed down the Society after 35 years. This was not a sad occasion though, for the members remained in their seats to be joined by colleagues from the similarly disbanded Institute of Physical Sciences in Medicine (IPSM) for the inaugural meeting of their new joint society. This will be called the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine and Biology (IPEMB). The IPEMB, now with over 2300 members, has already taken appropriate action towards replacing the BES within the IFMBE. Similarly, it has requested to retain its membership of the IOMP (International Organisation for Medical Physics). The IPEMB will then be the national member society of both the IFMBE and the IOMP, representing both engineers and physicists. In the UK National Health Service, many clinical engineers have traditionally found themselves described as 'medical physicists' and have been represented by the IPSM, and so this amalgamation will increase their access to professional engineering opportunities, such as registration as chartered engineers. The President of the IPEMB, Professor Peter Wells, is supported by offices at both the former BES address in London (at the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PN; tel. +44 (0)171 242 7750) and the former IPSM offices in York (4 Campleshon Road, York YO2 1PE; tel. +44 (0)1904 610 821). | ||