IFMBE Secretary-General’s Report 1997-2000

Transition of the Secretariat

The transition of the secretariat was finished in March 1998 although the concrete contact with the Amsterdam Office for the transitions was taken much earlier. We had an intensive e-mail exchange during November 1997 when we were discussing the practical details of the transitions and even the routines for running the secretariat. In December 1997 I went to Amsterdam to see the archives and discuss the transition with Marijke Lensing and Jos Spaan.   

All the material, documents, books and correspondence were in Stockholm as I mentioned in March 1998. It took longer than calculated, since a number of boxes containing older IFMBE archives from Ottawa were sent to Stockholm. Everything is now placed in storage in the Huddinge University Hospital. I went through all the boxes and took away some paper material like older stationery, envelopes and printed material of which there were several copies. However, there is still a so-called archive copy left of everything. This was necessary since the number of boxes is still 12.

Setting up the organisation

My plan was to run the Secretary-General's Office with a staff of two; a secretary/assistant and myself. There was a vacant secretary's position at my department and, in May 1998, we managed to employ a qualified person. However, very soon I realised that the Department needed more of her time and there was no possibility to cover an additional position for a secretary. Therefore, I decided to do more of the ordinary work for IFMBE myself. Unfortunately, the secretary suffered several personal tragedies this spring, which of course has affected the work before the AC meeting and the General Assembly in Chicago.

Stationery and Directory 98

Stationery and Directory 98 were printed in August 1998. The Directory was delivered to the national societies during September 1998. The reason for this late printing date was the delay in receiving updated information from the societies. Only two weeks after the delivery I received the first notice of errors in the Directory. The societies do not inform the secretariat of the changes of their addresses and names of officers. I have sent several reminders during the two and a half years to the secretaries of the national societies about the responsibilities, but still the response frequency is very low.   

The Directory 98 was also sent in electronic form to the webmaster in Amsterdam, but it was never put on the web. I do not know the reason, but it might be that the file was an MSWord document and the Directory on the web is an Acrobat document that can be downloaded. The prior information from the webmaster was that there would not be problems converting the file.   

Since the homepage was transferred to Sweden, the Directory on the web has been updated twice, most recently on 31 August 1999. The Acrobat file, which is 138kB, was also renamed Directory 99.   Also, the stationery was distributed to the members of the AC and to the chairmen of the committees and divisions who so requested.

Homepage

The homepage was moved from Amsterdam to Sweden in March 1999. The new address is "www.ifmbe.org". This time the Federation web is not under the IUPESM web as it was earlier. There are of course links to IUPESM and IOMP websites from our web.   

The cost for the web page is $714, or £560 per year. There will be additional costs when we develop the web. An offer for the development was tabled during the AC meeting in Seoul, Korea. The offered develop-ment included a discussion forum for the membership, an electronic meeting place for the committees and divisions, a news site for the membership and list-server function. To make all this would cost approximately $6500, or £4100. This sum also included the design of the new pages. More offers were taken in late September 1999, but none of them were cheaper than the first one. Therefore, I decided to design and make the first step of the new homepage myself. The new homepage was placed on the Internet in December 1999.

Membership information

One of the goals the President Jean-Pierre Morucci has had during his term was to increase the number of member societies. The interest in IFMBE membership has indeed increased. During the last two years the following countries have requested information about how to become a member of IFBME: Georgia, India, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Russia, Turkey, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Ireland and Yugoslavia have already sent their complete applications to the Constitution and By-Laws Committee for examination. Even the Latvian Society has sent an application, but some documents are still missing. Also, several individuals have asked how to become a member of IFMBE. I recommend they contact the national society of their country.

Information to professional congress organisers

Another group that very often requests detailed information is the Professional Congress Organisers (PCO). They usually request information about the previous IFMBE congresses and where the forthcoming congresses will be held, with a view to offering their services. These organisers get an information package containing policies and procedures for IFMBE congresses and contact information to the national society of the country in question. In some cases, there is very close co-operation with the PCO and the National Society, for example when the next world congress site is going to be selected.

Support for congress organisers

The Secretariat gets often request of support to organise conferences and meetings by the member societies. Because of the small financial recourses IFMBE has, the support is restricted mainly to endorsement, which means that the organisers are allowed to use the IFMBE logo in their publicity material. In some cases, the Secretariat has worked as an information distributor and a co-ordinator in setting up the international communications and distribution channels. This was the case for example for the WC2000.

Administrative Council and Officers' meetings

The Administrative Council (AC) of the IFMBE and the Officers meet usually in connection to the conferences and can in that way participate in the scientific programme of the conference. For example, in 1999 the Officers' meeting was arranged in Tallinn just before the 12th Nordic-Baltic Conference. The officers' meetings are important in order to prepare for the ordinary meeting of the AC and hold discussions on important matters concerning the Federation and its relations with its international members and other organisations like the IUPESM. In 1999 we had an additional Officers' meeting in Vienna in connection to the European Medical and Biological Engineering Conference. This meeting was specially dealing with the European BME structure and resulted in an Ad Hoc Committee on European Affairs chaired by Niilo Saranummi. Reports from the different AC and Officers' meetings can be found in IFMBE News No 31, 32, 38, 39 and 40.

Mail ballots

The AC has carried out one mail ballot during this three-year term. This mail ballot was dealing with the new IFMBE Award called the Otto Schmitt Award and the wording in the Policies and Procedures document concerning the awards. The final discussion about the wording will take place during the AC meeting in Evanston, July 20-21.

Elections

Each General Assembly will elect new Officers, AC members, IUPESM AC members, and members in the boards of the IFMBE Divisions. This time the call for nominations was first published in the IFMBE News No 39. The call was also sent by ordinary mail and by e-mail in February 2000. The mailings were addressed to the national secretaries and they were asked to send the nominations back to the Secretariat no later than May 15. The information was also posted on the IFMBE homepage. The IUPESM Awards were also announced during the autumn 1999 and mailed together with the other calls. Results of these calls are compiled in a special document, which will be available during the WC2000 in Chicago prior to the General Assembly.

Achieved goals

In a self-presentation published in the IFMBE News in May 1998, I stated a number of duties that I would deal with. These duties were to update the Directory and the Federation homepage, try to maintain good communication network, create a model to co-ordinate the different meetings and conferences and work for increased support to our member societies in the Baltic States, in Eastern Europe and in developing countries.   

Looking at the results from these two and a half years there is not much that has come true. The optimism in the beginning has changed to realism. Most of the goals are dependent on a good communication network and, unfortunately, this is very hard to maintain. The addresses of the contact persons of the societies become regularly out of date and the Secretary General's office will not get the new information. This is a rule although the national secretaries should know what responsibilities the societies have. To be sure that they get the information concerning their responsibilities, the societies have got a document containing this information. Still, only three societies have sent new information without reminder. After a reminder seven more mails came out of 45. Perhaps the information and reminders did not reach the right person. This is one of the reasons why the Directory is available only in electronic form. It is too expensive to print a number of booklets with outdated information.   

The coming three-year term, if I am re-elected, will, I am sure, be more productive. The routine for operations are established, documents created and the important contacts are known.

Heikki Teriö
Secretary-General, IFMBE