Nytt från det isländska sällskapet
för laboratoriemedicin
News from the leelandie Society for LaboratoryMedicine
ELINOLAFSDOTTIR
The leelandieSociety forClinicalChemistry,Hae–
matology andClinical Physiologywas founded in
July 1978. It celebrated its 20th anniversary in
spring 1998 by changing the name of the society
to the leelandie Society for LaboratoryMedicine.
Membership is open to all persons working or ha–
ving worked in laboratories of clinical chemistry,
haematology or clinical physiology andwho have
completed a specialist training in the respective
disciplines. They may hold university degrees in
medicine, biochemistry, molecular biology, phar–
macology, physiology or other disciplines that the
society accepts. Presently the society has amem–
bership of 32 and 70
%
of those have a degree in
medicine.
In September 1998 the society organised a
Nordie course inReykjavik, as part of the celebra–
tians, titled Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular
Medicine in Current Oncology. The course was
advertised as
"Nordisk forskar symposium"
and
we had three participants from the other Nordie
countries, one from Sweden and two from Den–
mark. Nine leelandie speakers were invited and
five speakers from abroad, two from the England,
two from theUnited States and one from Finland.
The course attracted altogether 45 participants and
was well received. It was mainly financed by the
leelandie Society with some support from Nord–
fond thatwe herebywish to acknowledgewith sin–
cere thanks.
The major goal of the Society is to strengthen
the standingofLaboratoryMedicine in leeland by
having an open forum for communication and de–
bate amongst themembers,byparticipating in sci–
entific meetingsand organising educational cour–
ses either on our own or in cooperation with other
medical disciplines. Another important taskof the
leelandie Society is to encourage active interac–
tionwith sister societies in neighbouring countries
especially the Nordie countries, the most produc–
tive one being the participation in NFKK, KKN
andNQLM.
54
Open meetings are heJd regularly, about four
times ayear,where varied topics are presented and
discussed. Speakers are at timesmembers or invi–
ted speakers either from abroad or local persons
active inmedical research. ANewsletter is issued
annually to keep members informed about the ac–
tivities of the Society and various ongoingNordie
projects.
Last spring four leelandie laboratories partici–
pated in an interference study organised by the
NQLM and three of those will be participate in
the Common Nordie Reference Values project.
leeland has a representative in the Nordie enzyme
committee and hopes to implement the IFCCmet–
hods for enzymes in the year 2000.
A quality contra! committee, with four mem–
bers, working within the society has organised a
number ofsporadicQC surveys followed bymee–
tings open to all laboratory personneJ to discuss
quality issues within leelandie laboratories. The–
se meetings have generally been extremely weil
attended and their aimwas to increase the aware–
ness and point to the importance of good intemal
QC practices as weil as EQAparticipation. There
is still no formal national EQAorganisation in the
country, however the bulk of EQA programmes
being used come from Labquality in Finland and
DEKS also supplies someprogrammes.Afew labs
have continued their subscription to programmes
fromMurex and Randox.
Manyof the common political and educational
aspects of the laboratory disciplines are dealtwith
under the leelandie Society of Pathologists. That
society is part of the leelandie Medical Associa–
tion and medically qualified specialists in all la–
boratory subjects are members. TheMedical Fa–
culty at the University of leeland also plays an
active role in shaping the educational environme–
nt in the country. It may at times be rather diffi–
cult to distinguish between the role of the diffe–
rent bodies or how they exert their influence since
the same individuals are activelyworking towards
Klinisk Kemi
i
Norden 3, 1999
