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48
| 4 | 2008
Klinisk Biokemi i Norden
The 20th International Congress
of Clinical Chemistry and
Laboratory Medicine was held
in Fortaleza, Brazil on Sept. 28
to Oct. 2, 2008. IFCC Executive
Board had its meeting and the
IFCC triennial Council meeting
was held before the opening of
the Congress. Council meeting is
always the one everybody expects
with anxiety, because the new Executive Board is
elected by the delegates of the Council.
The agenda of the Council meeting starts by
triennial reports of the President, the Treasurer, the
Vice-President and the Chairs of the Divisions. The
IFCC President Jocelyn Hicks highlighted some of
the achievements of the present Executive Board
(EB). During the term of this EB the number of Full
Members has increased from 72 to 79, of Affiliate
Members from 4 to 6, and of Corporate Members
from 30 to 37. IFCC has negotiated with the European
Federation an agreement which states that EFCC is a
branch of IFCC in Europe.
The EB has developed a mission statement and
a vision and set top five priorities for its activi-
ties during its term. The first priority was to deve-
lop integrated projects. The work of the Scientific
Division (SD) should be integrated with the other
Divisions. The Education and Management Division
(EMD) will assist with educational materials con-
cerning new standards and reference methods. The
Communications and Publications Division (CPD)
will be sure that the information is posted on IFCC
web, and will assist with needed monographs. The
Committee on Congresses and Conferences (C-CC)
will ensure that IFCC meetings will contain sessions
devoted to the newest work from SD.
The second priority of the EB was to improve
Public Relations. EB has worked through CPD to
make Member Societies and the public aware of IFCC
activities. The biggest problem in communication has
been the difficulties of having a user friendly website.
IFCC NEWS
Päivi Laitinen
The problems of the website will be solved within a
month’s time, when the new website will be launched.
Labs are Vital program is a program developed in
partnership with Abbott Laboratories. This program
is one which emphasizes the value of the laboratory
professional both inside the health care system and to
the general public. It is available on www.labsarevital.
com.
The third priority was education. EB has decided
to develop educational programs to help not only
our members, but clinicians and patients as well. EB
has also continued to provide specialized educational
programs such as the ones in evidence based medi-
cine and in analytical quality. The EB has increased
the donation to the other Federations than EFCC to
10,000CHF per annum in order to help with educa-
tional and scientific activities in these regions.
The fourth priority was assisting developing
countries in improving analytical quality.
These countries must be encouraged to take
advantage of the greatly expanded Visiting Lecture
Program. In addition, “Young’s Effects” on-line is
available for developing countries free-of-charge and
the new program of travel scholarships enables young
clinical chemists from developing countries to attend
congresses and conferences.
The fifthprioritywas tobetter reflect thatLaboratory
Medicine is part of the name of our organization. We
should seek areas in which we can expand our scienti-
fic activities such as in Microbiology and Virology.
During the IFCC General Conference in Antalya
last April there were five discussion groups discussing
different topics. The main message of the discussion
groups was that the IFCC has to collaborate more
with the International Clinical Associations as well
as with the National Societies and this has to be two-
way communication. The EB has listened to the sug-
gestions of these discussion groups and is working on
the following topics. IFCC has created together with
Siemens a distance-learning project, which is at the
moment available on http://www.siemenslearning.
com/IFCC/. The first program is on the Natriuretic
