Letter from the ISTM President

Dear Society members,

I hope you had an enjoyable summer holiday and have returned renewed and invigorated.

It has been a busy summer for our Society. Following the New York Conference and our Executive Board meeting in May we have been hard at work to implement some of the resolutions made by the Board. One of the resolutions, and one of my chief goals in the next year, is to focus on several issues concerning membership. First, I intend to concentrate on increasing our membership. Although the field of travel medicine is becoming more popular and more widely recognized, our membership numbers have stayed fairly constant in recent years.

Why a focus on increased membership? We are the only international society representing specialists in the field of travel medicine and increasing our numbers will strengthen our influence as an expert body and strengthen our position with respect to other international organizations involved in health and travel.

We must put forth every effort to be as inclusive as possible and overcome obstacles that may hinder access to the Society’s extensive resources for everyone practicing travel medicine. To those who are not yet members I would like to say welcome to the ISTM and provide whatever support I can in facilitating membership in our Society.

I have several strategies for achieving this goal. One is an outreach program to countries where the discipline of travel medicine has only recently been recognized. Another is recognizing that our specialty cuts across lines of traditional medical disciplines such as pediatrics, emergency medicine, and occupational medicine. Therefore, I want to begin by formalizing relationships with organizations representing other specialties. This can be achieved by sponsoring seminars and educational opportunities at their meetings and conferences, creating other jointly sponsored educational programs as well as encouraging their participation at our meetings and conferences.

Many of you may not be aware that in several countries there exist strong national travel medicine societies. Many dedicated practitioners of travel medicine in these countries are not ISTM members because of the problem of having to pay double dues, to the national society, and to the ISTM. This has been a serious obstacle in enrolling members of these national societies into the ISTM. At our last Executive Board Meeting, a solution was suggested which involves a category of Associate Membership. Associate members would receive most member benefits but would not receive a printed edition of the Journal of Travel Medicine, our most expensive item. Instead, they would have access to the Journal on line.

Associate Membership will be offered on a trial basis in South Africa in conjunction with the African-European Conference on Travel Medicine (AECTM) in February. Members of the South African Society of Travel Medicine will be offered ISTM membership at a reduced fee. Most but not all ISTM benefits will be included. If this experiment is successful, it can be expanded to other national societies, thereby increasing our membership.

In addition to working with national societies, I have also instructed the Executive Board to consider reduced membership dues (again with online JTM access only) to members from WHO-designated developing countries where our dues structure may be prohibitive.

Increasing membership numbers is also a grassroots effort. I encourage each of you to suggest ISTM membership to your colleagues. Membership brochures are available through the Secretariat office. When attending medical meetings and hospital conferences, for example, please distribute our brochures.

We have also developed a very attractive ISTM exhibit booth which was utilized at two recent conferences, the Wilderness Medical Society Conference in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, in August and at the Infectious Disease Society of America Conference in San Diego in October. These efforts yielded 50 new members.

At its most recent meeting the Executive Board realized that the Society has grown to the point where more executive and administrative support will be needed in the coming years. We will be submitting a "request for proposal" to management companies to provide administrative support to our Secretariat. Once implemented, this will free officers and the Board members to concentrate on policy issues rather than on day-to-day management. Until an Executive Director or management company is in place, I want to reassure you that every effort is being made to ensure accountability and transparency in Society executive decisions. I have empanelled a Finance Committee consisting of the President, President Elect, Secretary/Treasurer, one Board member, and one non-Board member. They will oversee finances and contracts. In addition, I am soliciting more member involvement in ISTM business and activities, and I would like to see more committee involvement and more members seeking elective office. I encourage Society members to contact me either directly or through the ISTM Secretariat.

I am also very excited about our new educational opportunities. In February 2004, we will hold an off-year regional ISTM sponsored conference, the African-European Conference of Travel Medicine (AECTM) in Cape Town South Africa, February 8 - 11, 2004. The next off-year conference will be in 2006, the Northern European Conference of Travel Medicine, in Edinburgh, Scotland. This conference will be jointly sponsored by ISTM and the travel medicine societies and associations of Scandinavia, UK, and Ireland.

And it is not too soon to start planning to attend our next major conference, CISTM9, in Lisbon, Portugal, May 1 - 5, 2005. The Scientific Planning Committee is already at work and, building on the success of the New York conference, the Committee is planning a spectacular event. The next Certificate of Knowledge Examination in Travel Medicine will be held in conjunction with the Lisbon meeting. We have also planned a series of weekend Travel Medicine CME courses in North America for the year 2004.

Another area I have been focusing on has been the role of ISTM as an expert body, within both the international health community and the travel industry. The recent SARS outbreak galvanized many in public health and in the travel industry to be proactive with respect to travel health issues. I recently traveled to Geneva and met with Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, the Director of International Travel and Health of WHO. We formalized collaboration between ISTM and WHO, recognizing the unique role of the ISTM in representing clinicians who advise and care for travelers on a daily basis. While in Geneva, I also met with officials from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to discuss potential collaborations with the travel and airline industry.

I foresee additional opportunities for the ISTM to serve as an expert body and will be exploring these opportunities over the next few months. In the meantime, I am enthusiastically anticipating much progress within our Society in the next year. But this can only be done with your strong support. If you have any ideas for furthering these projects, please let me know; I welcome your input.

Brad Connor, New York