Dear Medical Writers
A year has passed so quickly and it is time for me to step down and hand over to Andrea Rossi, the new EMWA President and the first Italian to take on this important position. On reading through the various messages I sent you during the past year, I am pleased to say that the Executive Committee (EC) was able to implement several of the plans we envisaged when I assumed the role of leading the organisation.
Our journal has got a brand new look, a talented new Editor-in-Chief as well as a new title. New brochures have been printed in four different languages to help spread the word about EMWA and attract new members. We established the Geoff Hall student scholarship to help budding medical writers attend our conferences, and we are continuing to develop our cooperation with the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals. We have set up an online voting system for members who are unable to attend the Annual Meeting at the spring conferences, and we also performed several online surveys, including one to assess potential interest in online learning for our members. As I say ‘goodbye’ my warmest thanks go to all the members of the EC as well as our staff at head office and who have worked so hard to make all this happen. I am confident that the new EC will ensure continuation of these initiatives in order to better serve our members and the organisation. And on this note I will say, ‘Over to you Andrea!’
June 2013
Susan Bhatti
Retiring EMWA President
Thank you Susan. It is a pleasure to introduce myself to the membership. I'm an Italian biologist from Florence. I have been working in the Medical Department of Eli Lilly for 23 years, the last 9 being spent in performing and managing medical writing activities.
As EMWA President, my objective is to continue to build on the foundations laid down by previous presidents. The new EC and I will do our best to ensure that EMWA continues to be successful and to grow in both reputation and membership numbers. The challenges behind the scenes to keep the association running smoothly remain substantial. The EC will need an increased contribution from additional volunteers to maintain the EMWA Professional Development Programme as a reference for professional development, to improve the quality and visibility of Medical Writing, to enhance our internet portal (possibly including online learning), and to vitalize all media activities, as well as ensuring our conferences remain attractive to anyone who is interested in the various facets of medical writing.
Looking forward to the forthcoming conference in Barcelona, I am very pleased that we have been able to renew our collaboration with the Spanish Medical Writers Association. We are also very excited to have two guest speakers at the conference from the European Medicines Agency (EMA). We hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful cooperation!
I hope I'll be able to transmit all my Mediterranean enthusiasm and my vision of EMWA's future in this exciting and challenging year. I look forward to catching up with you again in the near future.
June 2013
Ciao,
Andrea Rossi
EMWA President