WC 2003

POST CONGRESS IMPRESSIONS

After so much planning over the last three years, we were delighted to see so many colleagues and friends in Sydney at what we think was a highly successful Congress held in a week of unbelievably good weather. When we signed the WC2003 contract in Chicago in 2000, we never dreamed that we would need to cope with problems such as terrorism, war, a global economic downturn and SARS – all of which led to continually shifting deadlines and more than a few sleepless nights. We got through due to a hard-working and dedicated executive committee with excellent support from our professional conference organiser and continuing international help, good will, encouragement and advice, particularly from Dov Jaron and Joachim Nagel.

Having the World Congress in Australia was a particular pleasure for me, as my initial encounter with the IFMBE was in 1971 when I was a member of the team organising the 9 th ICMBE [the Biomedical Engineering half of the World Congress] in Melbourne under the command of David Dewhurst. There I first met IFMBE luminaries such as Jack Perkins and Keith Copeland, leading in due course to my involvement with the Federation and, after attending the first World Congress in Hamburg in 1982, my dream of bringing the World Congress to Australia one day has been realised.

Our Keynote and Plenary speakers were excellent, bringing us the state-of-the-art developments in their fields and pointing us towards the future. In the light of feedback from colleagues and previous World Congresses, we introduced new tracks and changed the thrust of others. As an example, Health Technology Management, which combined the former Clinical Engineering and Technology Evaluation Tracks, proved to be a great success under the enthusiastic leadership of Mladen Poluta and Adrian Richards. We put a lot of work into good communications. Our e-newsletter "DownUnder 2003" was very successful and some editions were also published in Chinese and Japanese. Other innovations included the personalised program on the website and the search engine included in the CD Congress proceedings.

Finally, we are finding that one of the most important spin-offs for the World Congress host country is the participation of people who would not normally attend international meetings, the enthusiasm that they take with them when they return to their jobs and the effect on the profession at local level. Many of the local societies contributed, through loans, to our seed funding, and this has also helped to give them a great sense of pride and "ownership" of the World Congress and a real appreciation of the role of the IFMBE.

Richard Kirsner