|
Dear Colleagues and Friends, I am pleased to invite you to join us in Barcelona, Spain, from 29 April to 3 May 2008 for our 26th EMWA conference. As has been the case now for several years, this conference has continued to grow and the scope of activities on offer are the broadest ever. The EMWA Professional Development Programme (EPDP) is offering 58 workshops, most of which can be applied towards obtaining certification in the EMWA-approved accreditation for medical writers (see Page 10 for more details on the EPDP). The theme of this conference is Scientific and Medical Translation. This was selected to meet the needs of many of our members who work in this field, but who have indicated in the past that EMWA did not offer enough in this area to merit coming to a conference. I hope this is the start of a pattern that will change their minds. A group of enthusiastic members helped us put together a programme that will focus on several key areas affecting medical translators today. We have also developed contacts with the Mediterranean Editors and Translators association (MET) and the Spanish Medical Writers Association (Asociación Española de Redactores de Textos Médicos – AERTeM) to build relationships with other writers and translators in Europe. The goal is to establish a forum for sharing knowledge and experience on the common grounds between all of our organisations. I look forward to a fruitful interaction between all of us and a chance for these organisations to recognise the potential for such collaborations in the future. In addition, we are continuing the Hot Topic series this year with 2 seminars on new topics that medical writers are being confronted with: the European Risk Management Plan and the Paediatric Investigation Plan Application. If you haven’t had to work on one of these yet, you probably soon will. This is your chance to find out what they are all about and to hear what other writers are doing with them. In particular, you will have the opportunity to find out what Dr. Patrick Salmon from the Irish Medicines Board has to say about the regulator’s interpretation of the European Risk Management Plan.
You may have noticed that this conference marks the first with a new numbering scheme. As our Autumn conferences continued to grow, it became increasingly clear that the distinction between the Spring and the Autumn conference in terms of size was diminishing. To simplify things, and to give weight to the total number of conferences EMWA has held since it began, we have made a transition to a sequential numbering system for all conferences from this point forward. This is thus the 26th EMWA conference since EMWA’s first conference in Brussels in 1992 and the Autumn conference will be the 27th.
As always, I am very excited about the diversity of the programme that awaits us in Barcelona. It will be a conference that will easily live up to the learning and networking potential for which EMWA has established a reputation. I look forward to meeting you there and sharing in these activities.
Julia Forjanic Klapproth
|
