News from the Education & Professional Standards Committee

Table of Contents

Dear ultrasound friend

It was nice to meet with many of you at the EUROSON congress in Timisoara. The congress was a great opportunity for enhanced education in ultrasonography and the organisers did a splendid job to include many postgraduate courses and state-of-the art lectures in the programme.

At the last meeting of the Education & Professional Standards Committee (EPSC) in Timisoara, I had the great pleasure to welcome Prof Boris Brkljacic as co-opted member of the Committee. At this meeting we were also happy to acknowledge that the EFSUMB Board of Directors had voted in favour of a change in the Euroson School bylaws to make it more attractive to plan and run these courses.

Euroson Schools

The EPS Committee has as one of its main tasks to promote more Euroson Schools to be arranged throughout Europe. The first Euroson School of EFSUMB was arranged in 1992 and since then over 40 courses has been held. We will stimulate all the National Societies and ultrasound groups all over Europe to consider establishing a post-graduate course under the umbrella of a Euroson School. The EFSUMB secretariat and EPSC have made a dedicated "start package" to help the organisers of Euroson Schools. For more information, look at www.efsumb.org.

As Europe is the definite leader in clinical applications of CEUS, we have started an initiative to arrange regular Euroson Schools on the subject of CEUS. In cooperation with Bracco, the first Euroson School on CEUS is taking place 6. – 9. of November in Hanover under the auspices of Dr. Hans Peter Weskott. For more information about programme and registration, go to the website: www.CEUS-course.eu. Following Hanover, the next Euroson School on CEUS is scheduled for January 2009 in Nice, France. The overall plan is to arrange 3-5 Euroson Schools each year around Europe, thus ensuring that our members have access to high quality post-graduate courses on this very important topic.

Status and Progress of the Guidelines

Two more minimum training recommendations are intended to be published this year: Infant cranial and Thoracic ultrasound. Work is also in progress regarding the Critical/Intensive Care and Focused Emergency. The different guidelines and recommendations can be viewed online at the EFSUMB website.

The EPS Committee also wants to promote production of educational material for publication and dissemination on the Web. EPSC would like to see the EFSUMB web-site being an instructive educational portal for colleagues in the ultrasound community.

Prof. Odd Helge Gilja

Chairman EPSC

Email: [e-mail]