FEO News

Ad interim report from General Assembly meeting in Venice, May 2008

The General Assembly of the “Foederatio Europea Orthodontica" (FEO) took place in Venice on Sunday 11th May 2008, during the successful meeting jointly organized by the Società Italiana Di Ortodonzia (SIDO) and the Societè Francais d’Orthopedie Dento Faciale (SFODF) with the participation of the Mediterranean Orthodontic Integration Project (MOIP) network. 

In accordance with the byelaws, the president Olivier Mauchamp and the Secretary-General Mirjana Sasic stood down. Olivier becomes the immediate past-president and will remain in the Board. Thanks were given to both Olivier and Mirjana for their sterling efforts for the FEO over the last number of years.
The new President is Francesca A.Miotti, from the Società Italiana di Ortodonzia and WFO. José Maria Llamas was thanked for his activity as vice president of FEO and Barbel Kahl-Nieke, President of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Kieferorthopädie, was then nominated as Vice President of FEO. She proposed to inform and motivate the Eastern Societies for them to join in. The new Secretary-General is Julian O’Neill, from the British Orthodontic Society.  The new Secretary-General Adjunct is Panos Skoularikis, of the Greek Orthodontic Society.  The position of web-master will be filled in the near future. Odile Steil-Hutereau from the Societe Luxembourgeoise D' Orthodontie could not be re-elected as Treasurer and she was thanked  for her precious activity within FEO.  In order to maintain the accounting in Luxembourg Dr Michel Steil from LOS was elected in the position. José Dahan from the Société Belge d'Orthodontie will continue to serve as Belgian Administrator.
The increase in Board Members, in accordance with the byelaws, has been considered necessary by the Assembly, due to the increase in workload in the last few years and the new objectives the Federation is hoping to achieve.
During the Assembly, the winner of the 2008 FEO Award has been announced. The paper selected by society members was: 'Elective Orthognathic Treatment Decision Making, a survey of patient reasons and experiences', by J. Stirling, G. Latchford, D.O. Morris, J.Kindelan, R.J.Spencer and H.L.Becker, published in the Journal of Orthodontics , June 2007. As is the tradition, the Award will be officially presented during the next FEO General Assembly, which will be held in Dubrovnik, during the Congress of the Croatian Orthodontic Association, hosted by Mladen Slaj, on September  5-6 , 2009.
 
Members of the new board look forward to working with all FEO Members and to increasing the participation in the Federation of more European Societies, to improve exchanges and cooperation in the promotion of orthodontics and dento-facial orthopaedics in the whole of Europe.

Click here to view your invitation to attend FEO 2008 (In PDF format)

All articles of the Hellenic Orthodontic Review website: www.grortho.gr/hor/ since 2003 are available in Free Full-Text!

A WIN IN EUROPE.

On Wednesday (11 February) the European Parliament voted in favour of amendments to the draft Directive on the Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications. The original draft would have allowed any practitioner from any EU country to work in another EU country unregistered, for up to 16 weeks.

The vote means (if the Directive is adopted in its amended format):

"I am delighted with the outcome of last Wednesday's European Parliament vote. The GDC, as part of the Alliance of Health Regulators on Europe (AURE), has been campaigning on this proposed Directive since March 2002. Last November, the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee amended the Commission's original proposal to reflect issues raised by the GDC and AURE. This vote confirms that these have been taken seriously.

"GDC staff have been relentless in highlighting our concerns to UK health and government departments, lobbying MEPs in Strasbourg and Brussels, and working with dental regulators and professional associations across Europe to put pressure on their own governments. I am delighted that MEPs have recognised the shared concerns of health regulators and professional associations across Europe and acted to ensure that patient safety is protected.

"Wednesday's vote is good news for patients throughout the EU. It is also good news for the dental profession, in its determination to preserve high standards of care. We hope that these decisions will be endorsed by the European Council of Ministers later in the spring".

NOTE. The EU Directive on Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications has not yet been enacted. The original (unamended) draft Directive would have allowed healthcare professionals from any EU country to work for up to four months per year, every year, in another EU country, without being registered with a regulator. In practice, this would have meant that if there was a problem with the care a person received, the regulator would have had no powers to take action against the professional in question. There would also be no means of preventing the same problem from happening again with another patient.