Dear Fellow IMS Members,
We have an exciting year ahead of us.
It is an unusual year in that all the regional Societies will be holding their Congresses in 2019. The first will be FLASCYM in Costa Rica in March, followed by EMAS in Berlin in May and soon after APMF in Manila in late May, and then NAMS in Chicago in September. I encourage you to support your region and attend one of these Congresses. They all offer wonderful, carefully constructed programmes and opportunities to meet with colleagues.
I am also delighted that there will be an IMS Symposium at each of these Congresses. Plus, for this year at least, the IMS will provide a Travel Award to each of the regional Societies for one person under the age of 40 years, and in training, to attend. Please be on the look out for these Awards as they are advertised so that you can share the information with your junior colleagues.
With the success of the delivery of the new online IMS refresher training program IMPART as a Pre-Congress Workshop at FIGO, we are going to hold IMPART Pre-Congress Workshops in conjunction with the Indian Menopause Society’s Congress in Kolkata in February and jointly with FLASCYM at their Congress in Costa Rica, late March. If you are thinking of attending one of these meetings consider attending our Workshop.
In order to extend our educational offerings we will provide more learning opportunities in languages other than English this year.
As a first step, IMPART will be soon available with Spanish audio to accompany all the modules of Level 1 of the programme. The Spanish programme me will be launched at the FLASCYM Congress in March. Special thanks to our Board Members, Sonia Cerdas and Camilo Rueda who are making this possible. In addition, early in 2019 we are hoping to upload the You-tube IMS videos for the general community in Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese. This will extend their reach dramatically. We will advise you all when this is about to happen. The English versions are presently available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-4OHO-C2exmMFhKwVFgX6A/videos
Menopause Live is continuing to greet us every Monday morning. Our new Scientific Editor Patrizia Monteleone is doing a fabulous job writing and editing articles. If you have any items to submit, she would be delighted to hear from you.
We had a very successful Board meeting in Dubai in December. It was a full agenda and we worked through a great deal of diverse material. We have a very engaged and enthusiastic Board and the various Committees are working hard on behalf of the Membership. Our next Board meeting will be in Berlin in May 2019, the day before EMAS commences. If you have any issues you would like raised please do not hesitate to contact me directly, or via our CEO, Ms Lee Tomkins, or contact your regional Board Member.
I wish you all a happy, healthy and successful 2019 and look forward to catching up with many of you over the coming months.
Susan R Davis, MBBS FRACP PhD FAHMS,
President, International Menopause Society.
