IFSO-EC wishes you Merry Christmas and happy New Year 2024

Dear Member Societies, dear Colleagues, dear Friends,

on behalf of the Executive Council of the IFSO- European Chapter, it is my pleasure and honor to address to you some words regarding our Community.

2023 was an excellent year: both the IFSO-EC Conference in Zurich and the World IFSO Congress in Napoli were more than successful, and we happily pay a tribute for the excellent organization to the Presidents, Ralph Peterli and Luigi Angrisani, as well to the PCO’s, Guarant and MCMCongressi.

The growing interest and the vitality of bariatric surgery in Europe is witnessed by the increasing number of young surgeons, that we saw participating to these and other activities of the Chapter.

Young IFSO is growing up, and the plan is to create a more structured group in the European family.

Webinars, meetings, courses have been successfully run in the last year, many more have already been planned for 2024 – we hope that you will appreciate the wide range of educational opportunities that will be offered to IFSO-EC members.

We are participating to the activities and decisions of the “big IFSO” board, lead with a balanced, wise but visionary attitude by Prof. Gerhard Prager, “one of us”. You can get all infos about IFSO life in his message, on the IFSO website.

Georgia is new Society member of the Chapter, and we warmly welcome his members in the IFSO and IFSO-EC family.

Life of the Chapter is also made of less visible decisions and actions, that does not bring immediate, visible results but will change the structure and the working flow of the board, the Committees, the Council.

Briefly, we already structured the Committees’ activities on a yearly plan, started to refresh our bylaws and procedures, reduced some bureaucratic steps that are limiting the fluent administrative management.

I would spend a special word to thank Juan Pujol, who created almost “from scratch” our communication strategy and, now, remains close to us as advisor to further implement it.

We are living complex times – nevertheless, form the Chapter’s point of view, we are positively looking for meeting all of you in Vienna, May 1 to 4, for the annual IFSO-EC Conference, organized by Gerhard Prager and Daniel Moritz Felsenreich. It will be an excellent educational opportunity and, in parallel, a great chance to meet old friends and to create new links, both professional and personal.

Concerning future activities, I am also happy to inform you that we agreed on organizing, with our “brothers” of EASO, a joint European Conference on the model of Goteborg and Maastricht – you will get more detailed information during the year.

Let me finally add few personal words: I am honored to serve the Chapter with all my commitment, but my efforts would be vain & ineffective without the full support that I am receiving from the Executive Council, and specially by the Executive Director Daniel Moritz Felsenreich, the Committees, the Senior Advisory Board. A special thanks to the IFSO office and the Guarant, that both coordinate and cooperate to the many organizing aspects of our activities.

We will work, all together, with the final aim to provide better services, bringing the Chapter closer to our national Societies, and to you, our valuable Members.

To this entire IFSO-EC family a Merry Christmas and a happy new Year, peace and health.