EFSUMB Newsletter meets Israel

Table of Contents

Population: 7,026,000

Area: 20,770 km²

Capital: Jerusalem

EFSUMB members: 131

Interview by Professor Michael Bachmann Nielsen February 2010

Diana Caitini

Diana Gaitini was elected President of the Israel Ultrasound Society in 2001 and reelected in 2009. She became involved in Ultrasound more than 20 years ago, shortly after becoming a senior radiologist in the Department of Medical Imaging at Rambam Medical Center. Diana trained in ultrasound in this Department and at fellowships in France and USA. Since 1997, she is the Director of the Ultrasound Unit and has an academic appointment as Associate Clinical Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa. "General ultrasound is a part of the Imaging Departments (Radiology). Echocardiology and Obstetrics/gynaecology ultrasound are part of the respective Departments. Specialists in radiology, cardiology and gynaecology are allowed to perform and report ultrasound examinations, according to the Ministry of Health directives.

Due to an increasing demand of ultrasound in every field of medicine, some exams are nowadays performed by other specialists, like orthopaedics and vascular surgeons, where radiologists are unable to cover all the fields, but it‘s still a small proportion of the workload."

The Israel Society in General Ultrasound – ISDUM

"The Society, which was founded 28 years ago by the three local pioneers in ultrasound with the collaboration of Prof Barry Goldberg, is part of the Israel Radiological Society. We don‘t have a newsletter, and all our announcements and communications are sent through the Israel Medical Association.

We are in the website of the Israel Radiological Society and publish announcements of our activities and web site addresses dealing with Ultrasound in this site."

Training in ultrasound in Israel

As general ultrasound is a part of Radiology, it is included in the residence syllabus. Every resident in radiology is trained in ultrasound during the 5 years period of the residence and has to pass examination boards, the first written and the last oral, on ultrasound, like in every other field of radiology.

"Our Society organizes an annual conference and short one-day courses in between on several topics, developed by local and foreign invited speakers. We don‘t differentiate into levels of competences and we don‘t offer courses for non-radiologists."

National Meetings in Israel

"Every year we hold a conference of the Ultrasound Society. The annual conference of the Radiology Society also includes presentations on ultrasound.

Haifa

A lecturer from North America, Canada or Europe is invited at every meeting and delivers the opening lecture which is on the name of Barry Goldberg and about four more lectures on specific topics, like Pediatric Ultrasound, Vascular Ultrasound, Interventional Ultrasound and so on. Our last conference was held in Tel Aviv and our invited lecturer was Dr Rick Field from Philadelphia, who spoke mostly on Interventional Ultrasound. Some of the previous speakers were Carlo Martinoli, Deborah Rubens and Vikram Dogra."

Membership

Both radiologists and sonographers take part in the conferences and courses, but only doctors are members of the Society. There are currently about 120 members.

ISDUM and EFSUMB

"We are proud to be member of EFSUMB, with the same rights as the European Societies. We participate every year at the General Assembly of EFSUMB and present lectures in the meeting."

The 7th EUROSON was held in Jerusalem in 1990. "We are willing to hold the Annual EUROSON Congress of EFSUMB in Israel in the near future. We are convinced that the country has many interesting historical and tourist sites to offer and our Society may share the efforts with the Radiological Society to organize a meeting which will certainly meet the standards required by EFSUMB.

And the weather is much warmer..."