Everyone has his or her own opinion about
the value of New Year's resolutions. Since most of you are probably receiving
this magazine around the middle of January, many of our personal resolutions
have no doubt already gone by the wayside. Nonetheless, it is good to take
stock at the beginning of a new year and reflect on things that have gone well,
things that could have gone better, and things that are left undone. EMBS is no
exception. Since one of the purposes of this column is to encourage all of us
to think positively about the future of biomedical engineering, and the future
of EMBS in particular, let's start with things that have gone well. In keeping
with our positive outlook, this column will focus on things to celebrate, work
in progress, and visions of things that could be possible.
REASONS FOR CELEBRATION
Outreach to the world
EMBS is the largest international
biomedical engineering society with almost half of its members residing outside
the United States. EMBS has implemented a number of initiatives to support the
international nature of our membership.
The administrative committee
representative structure was changed from the traditional IEEE regional
structure. Representation is now based on EMBS membership so that the number of
representatives from each region changes when the membership percentages change.
A set pattern of conference location rotation
has been established. Sites rotate among West Coast North America,
Asia/Pacific, East Coast North America, Europe, Central North America, and Latin
America. The 2007 conference in Lyon was a great success. We are looking
forward to the following conferences: 2008 (Vancouver), 2009 (Minneapolis),
2010 (Buenos Aires), 2011 (Boston).
Members and Chapters
2007 has been a great year for EMBS
membership. General membership numbers have increased 4 percent; 158 members
were elevated to Senior Member status and 11 to Fellow. EMBS now has 112
chapters, up from 50 just a year ago.
Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD)
Members continue to hold successful receptions at our annual conference and are
working hard to increase membership.
WORK IN PROGRESS
This is the section where we can consider
our resolutions. We have begun work in each of the following areas, but we need
the support of all of our members to improve in each of these categories.
Forty-six percent of EMBS members are in
industry. Many of our industrial members participate in local chapter meetings
but not in other EMBS activities. Most of AdCom is made up of members from
academia. Society awards are also skewed toward academic members. We are
striving to find a better balance and things are beginning to change. The 2007
EMBS Career Service Award was given to an industrial member (Nathalie Gosset); a
new award: Career Achievement Award for Professional Practice in Biomedical
Engineering was approved by AdCom in Lyon to be awarded starting in 2008,
and AdCom now has 4 members from industry. We are looking for additional ways
to serve our industrial members.
Since we are biomedical engineers we often
work with MDs and other medical professionals, however very few attend our
conferences or belong to EMBS. We have been working to encourage membership and
participation as this exchange of information is vital to the field of
biomedical engineering. In New York, a pre-conference workshop with continuing
medical education (CME) credit was offered with very good attendance. We plan
to continue CME opportunities at our annual conferences and also introduce
continuing engineering education workshops.
While EMBS is a strong society, we do not
operate alone. We need to seek collaborative opportunities with other
societies, both within and outside IEEE. We began this effort in Lyon with the
establishment of Special Interest Groups within IEEE. We also cooperate with
other US-based and international societies in sponsoring conferences.
VISIONS
IEEE has recently been looking at
strategic planning issues and has held a number of forums on this subject to
encourage participants to propose bold visions that may seem unattainable. In
the beginning it is difficult, especially for engineers who in general are prone
to establishing realistic goals. In this exercise, we are free to define goals
that may appear to be completely unachievable. It is a chance to dream of what
could be, even if we dont believe it is possible. One vision that was put
forth at an IEEE Strategic Planning Session was: IEEE will be the one place
people worldwide go for technical information. If any of you have a spare
moment and think of your own grand vision for EMBS, let me know (d.hudson@ieee.org).
I will publish the best responses in my next column. One day we may see them
become reality!
