Executive Director's
Memorandum
M
y last memo ended with the remark
that Barcelona 2005 seemed a long
way to go, but I urged you to plan
ahead because time flies. This is true because in
less than one year from now we will meet in
Barcelona under the Presidency of Dr. Jordi
Desola.
Barcelona is not just a Spanish city, no, it is the
proud Catalan capital City; a city of great
importance to all Catalan people. It is a very old
and historic city with many nice things to see,
do and visit. Dr Desola is busy preparing the
Meeting with a lot of energy. An example of
this was that he was in planning for 2005, ahead
of the planning for the 2004 EUBS Meeting in
Ajaccio (France), which has just ended. We all
hope that the new Congress Center, which is
built in Barcelona near the historic harbour
will be finished, with the adjacent hotel, which
will make an excellent meeting venue. No
doubts at all about the readiness of Barcelona
and dr. Desola and his cooperators!
Dr. Desola tempted the EUBS to have their
Annual Meeting jointly with the International
Congress in 2005 and he succeeded in that.
Certainly the very good memories of the EUBS
Meeting in1984, also in Barcelona and also
organised by dr. Desola, will have helped a
great deal in that decision. The European
Committee plans to have a workshop as well in
Barcelona. The subject is discussed in Ajaccio
and will be announced later.
So you see that visiting Barcelona is not only
touristically and socially rewarding but also
from a scientific standpoint; three in one.
In April 2003 I was invited by Dick Clarke on
his yearly postgraduate course in Columbia,
South Carolina, to present the evidence for the
treatment of Gas gangrene on the one hand and
Neuroblastoma stage IV in children with
hyperbaric oxygen on the other.
These are always very well attended and
superbly organised courses with very much to
learn. A visit to such a course in Columbia can
be highly recommended!
On the 28th of August 2003 the Executive
Board of the European Committee had a
meeting together with the board of the EUBS
(chairperson Noemi Bitterman from Israel) and
the representatives (N.Hampson as chairman)
of the UHMS during the Annual Meeting of the
EUBS in Kopenhagen (Denmark). The purpose
of this meeting was to discuss the possibility of
a half day meeting on "Indications" with all
organisations involved in hyperbaric medicine
worldwide to be held in Sydney in 2004 during
the UHMS meeting in May. It was not so much
meant as a discussion on indications and
evidence, but more so to hear from colleagues
from different parts of the world what there
indications are and how they reached them. In
a later stage we can put together the indications
and discuss the differences and try to agree
worldwide on a set of evidence based
indications for hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
This exciting meeting took place indeed in
Sydney under the very inspiring chairmanship
of dr. Mike Bennett from Sydney, Australia, the
organiser of the Meeting. Afollow up in future
meetings will be taken care of.
Another very important thing for hyperbaric
medicine to happen, was the publication in
2003 of the Report of the Hyperbaric Oxygen
Therapy Committee of the UHMS, chaired by
John Feldmeier. Very thorough work has been
done by its members to update the evidence for
hyperbaric treatment in many indications and
the reward for all this work is, among other
things, that the American Insurance Companies
pay for the treatment in those indications. This
Fall 2004
Page 3
HBO Congress
