Annual Report of the President

This has been a particularly busy year for the WFSA. Much of the detail will be found in the Committee reports but I would like to highlight some new initiatives.

A huge amount of time and effort has been put into the Global Oximetry project resulting in the formation of a new charity called  

This is the result of great cooperation between the two founding societies – the WFSA and the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, in conjunction with the Harvard School of Public Health. The team is led by Dr Atul Gawande. The WFSA is represented by Prof Alan Merry of New Zealand (Chair of WFSA Safety and Quality of Practice Committee) and Dr Angela Enright of Canada (President WFSA). The AAGBI is represented by Dr Iain Wilson (AAGBI President and Chair of WFSA Publications Committee) and Dr Isabeau Walker (Member of WFSA Publications Committee). Charitable status has been granted in the UK and is being sought in the USA. The website is www.lifebox.org You can read all of the updates and information about the project there. In short, a low cost, full service pulse oximeter, designed to exacting standards for use in low resource environments, is now available. Hospitals, governments and anesthesia providers can buy the oximeters or donors can support the purchase of  oximeters for those in need. A full package of educational material goes with every oximeter and is downloadable from the Lifebox and WHO websites as well. The WFSA is organizing workshops on oximetry at regional congresses and through its member societies. A campaign is underway to publicize the availability of the oximeters and to ask indivudals and Societies to donate oximeters to those who need them most.

In our efforts to promote safe anesthesia for pregnant mothers, the WFSA Obstetric Committee has developed a series of CD-ROMs with educational material for anesthesia providers. These are available free of charge from the WFSA. We have been giving them out at regional congresses. There have been many contributors to this exercise but it could not have been accomplished without an unrestricted educational grant from Baxter Inc. WFSA has also signed on to the UN Secretary General’s Call to Action to Global Leaders in September 2010 to take action on Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. Other organizaitons which have also committed resources are FIGO, Oxfam, CARE, Save the Children and others.

WSFA has instituted a new method of allotting funding to its committees. Each committee is asked to submit projects with a description of what the goals are, how they will be achieved and the projected costs. This gives the active committees a chance at a larger budget than previously. There have been excellent submissions but unfortunately we have not been able to fund all of them. However we are funding more than ever before and we hope to keep on doing so. One of the newly approved projects, submitted by the Scientific Committee, is for the support of research training for young anesthesiologists from low resource areas. It is very difficult for these young people to obtain the kind of training they need in research and we hope that, by giving them a start, they will become productive researchers in their own departments. Application forms are available on the WFSA website.

During 2010, pressure of work forced our Treasurer, Dr HJ Fontenot of the USA, to resign. WFSA would like to acknowledge Jerry’s years of service to the WFSA and to thank him for all his contributions. We are fortunate that Dr Mark Lema, also from the USA, stepped forward to take on this challenging role for the WFSA. The Management Group of WFSA meets regularly by teleconference and face to face once per year. Because of the high cost, the Executive Committee meets only every two years. At the last meeting, which was held in London, we employed a whole new strategy of how the meetings were run, with plenary sessions and then small group breakout sessions to encourage more active discussion and participation. This change resulted in a very effective meeting with contributions from everyone. We will continue working on this type of strategy.

I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you personally at Regional and National Society meetings. I have been in North, South and Central America, Europe, Asia and Africa. I will catch up with the Southern Hemisphere later on this year. The hospitality extended to me on these visits has been phenomenal and I want to thank each and everyone of you for your warmth and friendship. I will continue to try to visit as many countries as possible. We will all have a chance to meet in Buenos Aires in March 2012 at the 15^th World Congress of Anaesthesiologists. The Congress Organizing Committee from Argentina is working extremely hard to bring you a fantastic conference. I hope you will reward their efforts by coming to Buenos Aires. It will be a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with old friends and to make new ones.

Nos vemos en Argentina! See you in Argentina.

Dr Angela Enright

President