Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Feeling deeply honoured at the time of starting to serve the European Association for Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery as its President, it is a big pleasure for me to take this opportunity to greet our members and to share the main guidelines that we plan to develop during the next two years and , very especially, to send a positive message encouraging all of you to continue working for the benefit of our patients and the progress of the Specialty in spite of the difficult circumstances that our world is suffering due to the Covid pandemic which is affecting Europe in a devastating way.
My full recognition goes to the work done by the previous Executive Committee under the Presidency of my great friend Prof Jean Paul Meningaud. I hope to be able to continue the great job done in the previous years counting on the support of our members as well as the new Executive Committee and the excellent Secretariat of the EACMFS with special mention to Jill McFarland. Our renewed Executive Committee which is introduced to you in this newsletter, counts on new Officers in charge of key areas of the Society like Education, Christos Perisanidis, and Media, Javier Gonzalez-Lagunas. Changes in other areas like the position of the Treasurer, where Ash Gulati will deal with the modernization of our Foundation and the maintenance of a healthy financial situation which will allow us to maintain and create new opportunities for our members especially in Education. My congratulations to all the new Officers and our newly elected Junior President Elect, our current Secretary General Nick Kalavrezos. I am sure that this “dream team”, as an expression of the great EACMFS family, will be able to serve the Association which in my opinion does amount to serving our members and to work for the good of the Specialty as a whole. At this point, may I encourage all of you, to contribute to the Association personally or through your scientific or educational activities and to contact us in order to express your ideas or how we could help you and how you can help the EACMFS. Our desire is to continue spreading the European spirit in Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery in an inclusive manner throughout Europe. A special mention goes to our young colleagues and the trainee group who are the future of the Specialty. Their ideas and needs will be always be important to us and taken into account.
Some months ago, the Executive Committee took a difficult decision which proved to be wise. The postponement of the Paris Congress while maintaining the traditional dates for the official events which define the life of the Society such as the Council meeting, General Assembly and change of Presidency and Executive Committee for the first time in a “virtual” or telematic way was important for the function of the Association. May I thank all Councillors and members who attended the virtual Council meeting and General Assembly as well as our Secretariat and the technical team who were key to the success of those events. My full support goes to Prof Meningaud as the EACMFS Past President and Chairman of the 25th Congress of the Association now scheduled to be held in Paris between 13-16 July 2021. The Executive Committee together with the Local Organizing Committee and our Technical Organizer, Torres Pardo, are monitoring the evolution of the pandemic in order to organize the Congress taking in account the potentially changing situation aiming to offer an excellent Conference while keeping the safety of our members and visitors. We wish a great success to the Paris´Congress that will be followed as planned with the celebration in September 2022 of the 26th EACMFS Congress in Madrid.
We will be sharing with all of you in the near future the new projects and evolutions. As a brief summary concerning new educational projects, may I mention the organization of an East European EACMFS Symposium in conjunction with the Polish Association planned to be held in October 2021 if the Covid situation allows it. This meeting is designed to celebrate the Eastern Europe Educational programs led by the EACMFS during many years.
We also are proud to have been pioneers in the use of the new communication technologies in education with the e-lectures program under the leadership of Satheesh Prabhu. I am delighted to communicate that the Association plans to continue and increase the educational offer through the e-learning program, and also planning hybrid educational events.
As a final note, it is very emotional to me to recall that 2020 is an important year in the history of the Association since we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the foundation of EACMFS. The previous Executive Committee worked in preparing the celebration during the Congress in Paris which unfortunately had to be postponed. Also, a book on the history of the Association edited by Rafael Martin-Granizo and Manlio Galie, our new Senior President Elect has been prepared. It is a pleasure for me to invite all of you to attend the Special 50th Anniversary Web Session, “A walk down memory lane”, to be held on 26th November 2020. During this session we will honour our past and our predecessors and look into the future.
Prof Julio Acero
President of EACMFS
