Message from the IFSSH Secretary-General, Dr. Daniel Nagle

It is a great honor and privilege to serve as Secretary General of the IFSSH. I follow in the footsteps of Dr. Marc Garcia-Elias, our current President Elect, who did an outstanding job as Secretary General. I will endeavor to continue this tradition of excellence. Fortunately I will have Ms. Belinda Smith, our very able Administrative Assistant, to assist and guide me.

The IFSSH is a unique organization dedicated to hand surgery education throughout the globe. The education of hand surgeons and hand therapists has had and will continue to have a significant impact on the well being of millions of people around the world. The IFSSH through its Committee for Educational Sponsorship (CES) is eager to financially support the development of programs, courses and other educational venues and opportunities. We will address this in more detail in future Ezines.

Finally, I believe accurate communication is extraordinarily important to achieving the mission of the IFSSH. It is not difficult to send an email but to send an email that is clear, concise and unambiguous takes some thought. I will always endeavor to abide by this precept. If ever I do not achieve this goal please let me know.

I look forward to an exciting three years as your Secretary General. Thank you for the privilege.

Daniel Nagle MD
Secretary-General, IFSSH



IFSSH Triennial Congress Rotation

At the 2016 Delegates\' Council Meeting, the IFSSH ExCo advised of some difficulties with the congress host rotation schedule, due to an over-direction of successive congresses to the Asia-Pacific region (Australia in 2007, Korea in 2010, India in 2013). This biased the geographic balance of congresses and the IFSSH ExCo has worked for a number of years on a formula to provide fair and even distribution of the international congresses. This includes the number of societies within each region, as well as the membership numbers within each of those societies. Competition to host a congress is increasing, and more societies may be interested as the membership numbers continue to grow.

To avoid any further confusion over the long-term schedule, the IFSSH ExCo announced the regional rotation until 2037, as follows:
The ExCo reported that the circumstance of two successive European congresses (2019 and 2022) is not optimal and will not be repeated. The ExCo will discuss the impact of these meetings with the congress hosts and FESSH to ensure all outcomes are considered.

The guidelines to place a bid for hosting rights are on the IFSSH website - http://ifssh.info/guidelines.html.


Future Meetings
A detailed list of national and regional hand surgery meetings is available on the IFSSH website.

The triennial IFSSH Congresses are as follows:



Best regards,

Daniel Nagle MD
Secretary-General, IFSSH