Read the speech ISUOG's new President, Prof. Laurent Salomon, delivered to our members at our Annual General Meeting in December 2022.
“It is a great honour for me to take over the presidency of ISUOG today. I am aware of the importance of this position as I succeed Tom Bourne whose leadership steered ISUOG through the COVID pandemic which disrupted our lives, our community and our activities transitioning life from in-person to online and zoom, zoom, zoom...
As I step in to this leadership position, I look forward to rediscovering with all of you, the joy of living, learning and meeting again around our common passion, the health of women and their unborn children.
The role and work of the ISUOG presidents and the Board is important and I would like to thank here the presidents I have had the chance to work with: Katia, for her support, guidance and her precious help during these last years; Josh for his expert knowledge of governance rules and constant and enlightening advice; Andrew for his friendliness and kindness; and Yves of course, for everything and much more.
I also have a special thought for Reem today, who becomes President Elect and who takes over the presidency in 2 years. I am extremely happy to know she will succeed me and I look forward to working hand-in-hand with her to steer ISUOG into the future with the rest of the Executive Committee, including our new Honorary Secretary Liona Poon and our Treasurer Asma Khalil, together with the entire Board of Trustees.
Most of all, I want to dedicate these words to our members around the world. I think of our dedicated community who every day, in sometimes very precarious conditions, work hard to better care for women and their unborn children. From the young resident in Cape Town, South Africa, to the Professor of Gynecology in Trondheim, Norway, to the Midwife in the jungle of Honduras, to the Professor of Radiology in Tokyo, for those who learn, for those who teach, for those who screen, for those who diagnose, for those who assess, biopsy, operate, laser, plug, and measure...to all those who have an ultrasound probe in their mind and in their hand, I want ISUOG to be there for you and to support your educational needs.
To all of our community, I want to reinforce that ISUOG, through its charitable mission, will strengthen its presence in your daily life. Where the World Congress and our UOG journal have made us leaders in the field – and I do hope to see you for our Congress next year in Seoul - so too will the completion of our developing online educational offers and resources, our regional meetings and more advanced courses, webinars, outreach programs, and the virtual encyclopedia, VISUOG.
Making our activities easily and widely accessible is important, our focus is to become an aid for initial and continuous medical education, supporting us in our daily life. Particular attention will be paid to ensuring our offer is readable and accessible to all, whatever the origins of your training; sonographer, midwife, doctor, and whatever your resources and country of origin. I look forward to continuing ISUOG’s journey to grow further as a benchmark of quality for women and stakeholders, developing practice certification programs and exchange and internship programs for practitioners in training.
Strengthening the sense of community and membership within ISUOG is an important part of my presidency, achieved through the long-awaited return to face-to-face events, and by developing tools that will make it easier to interact through networking for the care of women or in scientific collaboration. Within this framework, I would like to develop projects to reduce language barriers, to simplify our membership program, and to complement our important membership base by increasing representation from communities in Africa, Asia and South America. This will be in line with our regionalization program to strengthen the presence of ISUOG all over the world. My geographical origin naturally motivates me to strengthen partnerships with the French-speaking medical-scientific communities in France, North Africa, Canada and everywhere else in the world.
It is important to thank all the stakeholders who make what we do at ISUOG possible: from our membership who enjoy the education on offer; our committees, task forces and working group collaborators; and of course, the dedicated ISUOG team who ensure the Society functions and glows from the London office and their homes. I thank all of you for being at the heart of the Society, for being its vital energy.
My commitment to all of you during my presidency is to promote, with the great Board members and exec around me, that our work takes the Society from strength to strength, enriching exchange, bringing fulfillment and wellbeing to all.”
ISUOG President
Laurent Salomon
