EPBS GGB Meeting: Portugal 2007

President's address

EPBS President Marie Culliton's address to the EPBS 2007 meetings in Portugal.

"The Management Body has continued to work on your behalf and consolidated the achievements already made. Specifically we have opened the bank account in Brussels which will ensure our financial independence.

Work has continued on the education - questionnaire and we are now in a position to approach the EU commission to initiate the process of instituting a common platform. This has involved a significant body of work, distilling the answers to the 2006 questionnaire and building on the work of the 2006 Students Forum by Fernando Mendes and Reka Rusz, with the able assistance of Ite Tygart. The results are presented here in poster form and we will address the issue again this afternoon.

Last year we discussed in detail the issue of competencies. We agreed to produce a working document for your approval. In continuing this work we reviewed the working document of the IFBLS. It is the opinion of the Management Body that this work is significant and that we should await the outcome of their final report. In the interim the Management Body endorses the current draft and commends it to you for your comment.

The redesign of our website is at an advanced stage which takes advantage of new developments and capacities in web design. This new look should enhance the appearance and functionality of our site portraying a more professional and dynamic image. We intend to retain the services of Alex Cochrane as our editor.

We are continuing to increase the membership of EPBS and many countries are expressing interest in committing to our ideals. I am delighted to note that the UK, one of the original founding members, is seeking to rejoin. They are indeed very welcome.

The EPBS is playing its role to ensure the development of a profession that is focused in biomedical science and that has the competencies to deliver a first class clinical laboratory service. But this cannot happen in isolation. The clinical laboratory service does not operate in splendid isolation from the rest of the health service. Members of the profession can, and must, contribute to the development of the health services. Already we have considerable representation at national level in our member states. But we must seek to play a role throughout Europe and Internationally.

The modern health service is grounded in the ethos of accountability and responsibility. Evidence-based medicine is important to ensure the best clinical outcomes are achieved within the constraints of equity and value for money. Where does this evidence come from? Clearly much of the evidence is gathered from the results of clinical laboratory investigations. Yet in spite of the vast investment in the education and training of biomedical scientists to ensure a quality service the resource that is our expertise is, in many instances, being lost to the health service. Why is this? In many cases it is because we are not participating in areas such as clinical audit or critically evaluating the contribution of our own results. Our role is not finished when the correct result is produced.

We have the education, training and competences to ensure that the results of our work are interpreted in the correct context with the appropriate inferences being made. We must join together, and with our clinical and scientific colleagues, to publish the fruits of our labour. We must ensure that we take our rightful role as a valued member of the clinical team.

How many times have you seen results that you produced appear in print with someone else’s name on the paper? If you have made an intellectual contribution to research then it should be acknowledged. If it is not, then shame on the authors. If it happens more than once, then shame on you.

I was both delighted and humbled by the response to our inaugural Martin Nicholson Prize last year. I am delighted to see that the standard this year is at least as high. I congratulatethe students, their mentors and colleges for helping these enquiring minds to grow.

The introduction of the Students Forum to our meetings has been a significant step in the harmonisation of education and the forging of contacts and friendships throughout biomedical science in Europe. It is wonderful to see some of the original group still here taking their place at the meeting and building a team again from this year’s forum.

Most of the delegates here at this meeting attained much of their knowledge through the unstinting generosity of their more senior colleagues. In visiting some hospitals and attending meetings internationally during the year I was particularly disheartened to hear senior professionals bemoaning the time and effort required to train their more junior colleagues. Reasons cited were lack of time and resources; lack of student interest; no recognition for this work; retention issues. Indeed in looking at the laboratories there was no feel that people were happy to work there or that it was a learning organisation.

Why is this? Are we afraid that these new graduates are more academically gifted than we? Do we feel that knowledge shared is power lost? This is not how our relatively young profession grew and developed rapidly. And if this attitude does not change there will be no future for this profession. The future of our profession lies in attracting and retaining gifted professionals. We must lead by example. The future of this profession is in our hands."

Marie Culliton
EPBS President