What does EFSUMB mean?

Table of Contents

This rather long acronym - EFSUMB - stands for The European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology.

As it stands, this Federation is an important part of the success story of ultrasonography. This technology - arising as a new and so to say shooting star in the 70's - quickly became indispensable, especially in human and in veterinary medicine as well as in other biological fields.

Ultrasonography for diagnostic and for interventional purposes needed formal structures for prosperous and professional development. To this end, national societies of ultrasound in medicine and biology were founded. The European societies were among the first worldwide to be created. All these societies eagerly and successfully took up the challenge of spreading and developing the use of ultrasonography. This holds true for the scientific as well as for the practical-clinical aspects, which in addition had to compete with other imaging modalities such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.

The national societies and their active members - as a rule, by the early 70's young men and women - organized congresses, scientific workshops, ultrasound journals (one of which is today our official EFSUMB publication journal: The European Journal of Ultrasound/Ultraschall in der Medizin), and maintained fruitful cooperation with our equipment manufacturers, physicists and other ingenious people with technical skills who really provided us for the sake of our patients with excellent ultrasound machines and systems.

All these national societies focused on the technology of ultrasound and its application - which was a new feature, since most of the other medical scientific societies are related to clinical subspecialties.

The common use of ultrasound, however, made these national societies in the latter part of the last century into something extraordinary: They became real multidisciplinary societies from the very beginning. Each subspecialty in medicine had to understand and to apply the specific tool of ultrasound in its own area of interest, and the parallels and similarities of the early questions were strong interdisciplinary links.

These questions are nowadays answered and understood to a great extent, such as the questions related to how ultrasound works, where to use it, when to use it, who should use it, the advantages and disadvantages etc - although new questions and challenges are arising (e. g., contrast enhancing substances) so the need for new answers will not end.

All had a strong international approach, too. The reasons are obvious - learning from one another across the borders has been one of the best teaching and learning instruments since the times of the Persian Ibn Sina whom we in Europe call Avicenna (980-1037). Language barriers were overlooked (as for example the German speaking countries gathering in their famous yearly "Dreiländertreffen"-congresses for Austria, Germany, and the Swiss), or the international congresses held in English.

Consequently, the national societies of ultrasound formed five continental international federations, among them EFSUMB -co-operating within WFUMB, (World Federation of societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology.

The EFSUMB constitution was signed on February 11th, 1972, in Basle,Switzerland (the home town of our current President, Kurt Jäger), by the founding members:

Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany BDR, Germany DDR, Holland, Hungary, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Yugoslavia.

The Federation with its headquarters in London is under the law of England and Wales, and our constitution consists of 11 chapters such as objectives, purposes, and membership. EFSUMB government consists of the General assembly, the Board of Directors (Delegates), and an Executive Bureau. It is worth while having a look at our constitution and the amendments, see our web site www.efsumb.org

Today, EFSUMB is an active umbrella-federation, representing 26 national European societies with more than 17000 members, mostly medical doctors from all fields of ultrasound application who are active in ultrasonography on their own but including Physicists and Sonographers amongst others.

The objectives and aims of EFSUMB may be summed up as follows:

1. Quality management in US-practice

2. Development of guidelines and regulations for

• The US-systems/machines,

• The basic/initial and the continuous education of those working with US

3. Organization of congresses, workshops, and seminars

• in conjunction with the yearly congress of one of the members or

• as a self-organized EUROSON School

• in cooperation with industrial partners

4. Monitoring of US safety by

• team of specialists named by the EFSUMB, the so-called watchdog-group ECMUS arranging meetings at regular intervals

• routinely reporting to the Board of Directors of the EFSUMB

5. Informing all members on developments in ultrasound

• By sending the EFSUMB Newsletter

• Education during the ongoing US-congresses

6. Co-operation with WFUMB

7. Co-operation with other European scientific societies

8. Promotion of scientific work of younger US researchers, by conferring awards for special scientific achievements and by donating grants.

This means, that EFSUMB supports and promotes the common as well as the national and European issues of US with respect to its scientific role and its practical application in medicine (and elsewhere in biology).

Apart from our official journal, one of the main activities is the yearly EUROSON congress. The next to be held in cooperation with the national societies will take place on 25-28 September 2005 in Geneva, Switzerland, on 15-19 September 2006 in Bologna, Italy, in Leipzig, Germany in 2007, and in Timisoara, Romania in 2008 (for details, please see our website). The meetings of the delegates - the Board of Directors Meeting - is always one of the highlights of an EFSUMB year during the EUROSON-congresses, and it is really a good occasion to meet again our delegate friends and to discuss the topics of US organization, education, and safety matters.

The more these challenging tasks are understood by all our international and multidisciplinary members, the better it will be for a continuous prosperous and fruitful future for the use of ultrasonography in medicine and biology.

Lucas Greiner, MD EFSUMB Honorary Secretary

Gianna Stanford, EFSUMB General Secretary