EDITORIAL

European Association of Nuclear Medicine: adapt the present,shape the future

Savvas Frangos & Wolfram H. Knapp & on behalf of theEANM Executive Committee

Published online: 24 January 2014# EANM 2014

The European Association of NuclearMedicine was born on 6September 1985 after “a difficult but exciting delivery”, asProfessor Peter Ell described it in the book Nuclear Medicine:Fusing the Ideas of Democritus and Hippocrates – 25 Years ofthe EANM. Since this delivery, EANM has grown up tobecome one of the most powerful scientific organizations inthe field of biomedical imaging and therapy, with highlyprofessional executive organs and office. In parallel with thisevolution, the medical field has changed, and thereby also theposition of nuclear medicine within medicine. The EANMExecutive Committee is committed to implementing withinthe Association those changes required to adapt to the evolv-ing scenario that characterizes the medical field.

Priorities have been identified and action plans put in placeto achieve this goal. Among the various priorities, radiophar-maceutical availability, demonstration of clinical evidence ofnuclear medicine procedures and education are considered themost important. It has also been decided that partnerships withother scientific societies, industry and patients’ organizationsshould be strengthened. These partnerships will enhance theinfluence of EANM in the medical field, highlighting theusefulness of nuclear medicine diagnostic and therapeuticprocedures to the ultimate benefit of patients.

Several actions are being coordinated by the EANM Exec-utive Committee to deliver tangible results to the nuclearmedicine community. In particular, at the Annual Congressof the EANM in Lyon, the Association put forward two majorproposals designed to foster its development: an extension ofits name with the phrase “Biomedical Imaging and Therapyfor Personalised Healthcare” and a thorough revision of theBylaws and Rules. Both the Delegates’ and the Members’Assemblies approved with very large majorities the new“Statutes” that will replace the Bylaws and Rules from 1January 2014. This revision was prepared by a ConstitutionCommittee mandated by the Executive Committee forformal and strategic reasons. Formal reasons were, forexample, redundancies in the Bylaws and Rules anddescriptions of functions that were no longer adequate(such as “Task Group Coordinator”). Strategic consider-ations included, for example, the growing role of edu-cation, which is now one of the most important activi-ties of the EANM. The current Bylaws do not mentionthe European School of Nuclear Medicine (ESNM), nordo they specify the role of the Dean. Another importantstrategic aim is to make the EANM Congress the lead-ing event in our field worldwide, which requires conti-nuity in planning of the scientific and educational content.All this has been taken into account in the drawing up of thenew Statutes.

EANM Executive Committee members: Fred Verzijlbergen, Room Na-602, Erasmus MC Central Location, CA Rotterdam, Netherlands; ArturoChiti, Medicina Nucleare, Istituto Clinico Humanitas, Rozzano MI, Italy;Savvas Frangos, Nuclear Medicine Department, Bank of Cyprus Oncol-ogy Center, Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus; Jure Fettich, Department forNuclear Medicine Radiopharmacy and Clinical Biochemistry, UniversityMedical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Bernd Joachim Krause,Klinik und Poliklinik für Nuklearmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Rostock,Rostock, Germany; Dominique Le Guludec, Service de MédecineNucléaire, Hopital Bichat, Paris, France; Wim Oyen, Department ofNuclear Medicine (756), Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen,Netherlands

W. H. Knapp (*)International Neuroscience Institute, Hanover, Germanye-mail: info@knapp-wh.de

S. FrangosNuclear Medicine Department, Bank of Cyprus Oncology Center,Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus

Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging (2014) 41:590–591DOI 10.1007/s00259-013-2676-4

Despite the adaptation to the new priorities, the spirit of theEANM, as originally embodied by the founders, the membersof the Society of Nuclear Medicine - Europe and the EuropeanNuclear Medicine Society, has not changed. The Associationwill continue to be governed by the member states (via dele-gates) and by the individual members. Although an efficientworking board is required for a highly professional organiza-tion, the new Statutes adhere to the bottom-up principle wher-ever it makes sense, e.g. in proposing candidates for leadingpositions.

The following is a concise description of the major changesto the EANM regulations in the new Statutes:

& Name of document: “Statutes”will contain all regulations,as the separation between Bylaws and Rules did not proveuseful. Specific regulations, such as those on the work ofcommittees or on the Congress organization, have beenlaid down in “Instructions”.

& Objective and Means: The definition of our field is animportant part of the document. It has been adapted toreflect the developments during the past 25 years.

& Role of Organs: For each organ there is now an introduc-tory paragraph defining the role of the organ for theAssociation.

& Renaming and job descriptions: “Executive Committee”is a rather unusual term in the context of scientific socie-ties. In addition, there is frequently some confusion re-garding “Executive Committee” and “Executive Secretar-iat”. Therefore, we proposed to change the names to“Board” and “Executive Office”, respectively.

The new Statutes give each Board member a precise jobdescription. The composition of the Board is as follows:

& The merged position of "Treasurer/Secretary" is created.With increased professionalization of the Executive Of-fice, the roles of both the Secretary and the Treasurer havebecome predominantly supervision of the operationalwork of the Executive Office. These functions are nowcombined and entail the obligation of close interactionwith the Executive Office. Themerger of the two positionsis legally possible according to the Austrian Law of As-sociations (Vereinsgesetz 2002).

& The “Task Group Coordinator” is renamed “CommitteeCoordinator”, as the term Task Group is considered nolonger appropriate. Instead the Board will have the possi-bility of creating Task Forces for special or ad hocassignments.

& The position of "Education Chair" is created. This reflectsthe increased importance of education in the strategy ofthe EANM.

& The new position of "Congress Chair" is created.With thisinnovation, two strategic decisions taken previously by

the Executive Committee are taken into account. First, theEANM Congress is slowly but constantly growing (cur-rently it has more than 5,000 participants) and it can beheld in only a few select cities in Europe that fulfil theinfrastructure requirements. Therefore, the Bylaws werechanged in 2008 so that the President of Congress and thehost country were decoupled, giving each country repre-sented in the EANM the chance to propose one of itsmembers as Congress President. Second, the strategicaim of further improving the quality of the Annual Con-gress implies continuity in respect of the positions respon-sible for the scientific content. Therefore, the position ofCongress Chair has been created, with the Chair to beproposed by the Board and approved by the Delegates’and the Members’ Assembly for a period of 3 years,renewable once. The possibility of holding the positionof Congress Chair for 3 years, renewable once, was heavi-ly contested in the Constitution Committee. It was thisconsideration that prompted the decision to impose theaforementioned high threshold of approval by both theDelegates’ and the Members’Assembly (with approval ofrenewal to be preceded by a proposal supporting renewalfrom the Board).

& The function “Local Ambassador” is provided to give thehost country of the Congress the opportunity to influencethe Congress and to increase interaction with the localscientific community.

We appreciate that the amendments have been approved bya very large majority of members and delegates. We areconfident that they will help to foster the further developmentof the Association and the future of nuclear medicine inEurope.

As mentioned above, another important decision was takenin Lyon. It was recognized that EANM has become a well-known label and should not be changed. On the other hand, wefelt that our official logo should point to a relevant benefit andprogramme for the future of our specialty. Therefore, it wasdecided to supplement the name of the Association with thephrase “Biomedical Imaging and Therapy for PersonalisedMedicine”. We are aware that medicine has always been inher-ently “personal” in that care is oriented towards the needs ofeach patient. However, the term “personalised medicine” nowcommonly denotes the use of technology or procedures en-abling a level of personalization that was previously not feasi-ble or practical, and among the different medical specialties,nuclear medicine has extremely high potential to offer tools forindividualization of therapeutic regimens, including radiother-apy or medication. It is hoped that by appending the abovewording to the name of the EANM, the clinical reality andunique potential of our specialty will be rendered more visible.

The new Statutes of the EANM are available on thewebsite: http://www.eanm.org/.

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