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Presidents Newsletter 2011 |
| Posted by Ro Kulkarni (shoulderdr@yahoo.co.uk) on Jan 04 2012 |
Dear member
The British Elbow and Shoulder Society goes from strength to strength. Our current membership is 501, comprising 408 surgeons and 93 physiotherapists. This is an increase from 169 in 2002 and is a testament to the success of the Society and the growth of specialist interest in the management of shoulder and elbow problems.
BESS Northeast 2011
The meeting was an astounding success and congratulations to the local organising team of Amar Rangan, Alan Stirrat, Jaime Candal-Couto, Dave Cloke and Lorna Goodchild. The venue was stunning and it was a real treat to be able to use the Sage building in Gateshead for our meeting with superb conference facilities and outstanding views of the city and the river Tyne. The nearby hotels and restaurants allowed members to stay within striking distance of the meeting venue and that accounts for the highest delegate numbers of any meeting we have ever held. A total of 508 people attended. The meeting was also a success financially and over £60,000 of profit has been returned to the Society for us to use for education and research programmes. A highlight of the meeting was dancing and the display put on by Prof Angus Wallace. There is some uncertainty as to exactly what type of dancing this was but it was certainly memorable!
Shoulder and Elbow
The journal is going from strength to strength under the custodianship and editorship of Ian Trail. The number of submissions has increased to over 100 per annum with 42% acceptance. The journal has been well received and is liked by the membership and by the broader community within Shoulder and Elbow. The journal is applying for recognition on PubMed and we should know the result of this early next year.
Administrative and Secretarial Support
We have grown to a size where it is appropriate to consider permanent administrative support for the society. Up until now this has relied on individual members of council providing support from their local base alongside a professional meeting organiser. A number of other societies, for example the British Society for Hand Surgery, have their own secretaries and this provides continuity and quality. We are considering a number of options including partnering with other organisations. We are also considering where the best location for the administrative support should be that would give us accessibility both to members of council and to the membership but also provide the necessary quality and cost efficiency.
The council has performed extremely well this year and I am very grateful to my colleagues for the enormous amount of work and effort they put into supporting you as a society. I am particularly grateful to Ro Kulkarni and Mike Thomas who have provided support during the absence of Simon Lambert from the secretary’s position over the past six months. Simon has unfortunately had to stand down from the position and we will be recruiting a new secretary at the annual meeting in Torbay in 2012.
Society Meetings
We have now grown to a sufficient size such that a relatively small number of venues are now suitable and appropriate for us. This is necessarily going to change the way we choose meeting venues. We will need to book venues at least three years in advance so that we can reserve the major venues and all the associated support in terms of hotels that we need to run a successful meeting. The membership will therefore need to consider at the meeting in Torbay where we will be holding meetings in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and I would like to encourage members to consider putting themselves forward to run the annual meeting.
Fellowships
All fellowships and travelling awards are now made in the name of the Society only. We do get important sponsorship from industry but these donations are made as unrestricted educational grants. These fellowships and opportunities to travel are a fantastic opportunity for both surgeons and physiotherapists and I would encourage all members to consider applying for them. We have been particularly fortunate this year to be given a commitment from DePuy Mitek to fund an upper limb fellowship. This will be a post completion of surgical training fellowship for one year. The award will be made three years in advance as a general rule. We are also pleased to announce that the value for the allied health professional fellowship has been increased to £3000 which puts this award in line with all of the surgical fellowships.
Instructional Courses
The Society plans to run a number of very exciting and interesting instructional courses at the meeting in Torbay. There will be a special session dedicated to physiotherapy and physiotherapy research on the Wednesday morning. This will run parallel with the session organised by the research committee, which will include a presentation by the ex-president of the BOA, Peter Kay, on procedures of low value.
Research
The Society continues to lead the specialists’ societies in its organisation of research. We have a very active research committee and have been able to add to our national portfolio of trials a new trial called ‘Can Shoulder Arthroscopy work?’ (CSAW) which will investigate the role of shoulder arthroscopy in the treatment of supraspinatus tendinopathy. Any members interested in participating in this trial should contact the research committee. The two previous trials on fracture management and open and arthroscopic management of rotator cuff have completed recruitment and will be reporting in the near future.
Wishing all the best for the festive season and New Year and looking forward to welcoming you to Torbay in 2012
Andy Carr
President
Last changed: Jan 04 2012 at 4:37 PM
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