Sunday, 12 June 2011

I had the pleasure to start the day by chairing the Opening Plenary Session about the history of  allergy over the centuries. Cezmi Akdis, Stephen Durham and Jeffrey Drazen gave really good presentations.

The first day of the 30th EAACI Congress has really established the success of the meeting (and the organisation). The day continued with a mixture of meeting (well, that is the role of Presidents I presume), and ended with a nice dinner together with several Board-of-Officers members and the new EAACI Executive Director, Michael Walker, who will start working for us on September 1st. I am sure Michael is a very good recruitment.

Monday, 13 June 2011

The General Assembly today was my last official meeting as the President of EAACI. The meeting was designed to present to the membership what the EAACI ExCom and Board-of-Officers have done over the last two years, built from the Presidential Programme presented in 2009 when I took office. I am very proud to say that we have delivered on many if not most accounts. But it would not have happened without the huge support of the team, including the Secretary General, Nikos Papdopoulos, the Treasurer, Antonella Muraro, the Vice-President for Congresses, Cezmi Akdis, the Vice-President for Communication and Membership, Vicky Cardona, the Vice-President for Education and Specialty, Luis Delgado, and the Past President, Roy Gerth van Wijk. Handing over the Presidency to Cezmi Akdis was of course also a great honour, and the meeting ended with a presentation of his Presidential Programme.

The rest of the day commenced with many small meetings and interactions, most importantly meetings with our American colleagues in AAAAI and ACAAI, discussing the possibility of establishing extended collaborations.

Monday evening, the Presidential Dinner contained excellent food, nice interactions, and from my perspective the most important tasks, to thank two friends who have allocated huge amount of time to the Academy, and served as President and Vice-President of the Academy, Roy and Luis. Thank you both for being such nice persons, close friends and hard working EAACI officers.

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

7:30 am meeting with one of the current Founder Sponsors of EAACI, strategic discussion. Beginning to get tired... EAACI congresses are intense...

Later in the morning I had the pleasure to chair a session about urticarial, and the huge improvements that have occurred over the last years. The topics and presenters were “Phenotypes” by Malcolm Greaves, United Kingdom, “New and diverse approaches to the treatment of atopic urticarial”, Marcus Maurer, Germany, and “Systemic manifestations of atopic urticarial” Allen Kaplan, United States. All talks were excellent, and the discussion was really interesting.

The afternoon was taken up by planning of the 2013 EAACI Congress in Milan, which we will do together with the World Allergy Organisation.

What is the most inspirational thing about EAACI? Well, of course its juniors. The junior’s social event was fantastic, with nice interactions, good food and lots of dancing. My legs were sore afterwards...

Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Luckily, I could sleep in a little bit on the last day of the EAACI Congress in Istanbul. And I could attend at least half a scientific oral abstract session, and I am looking forward to do more of that in future congresses. Afternoon, again filled with planning of the 2013 EAACI/WAO joint Congress in Milan. Tomorrow I can go home. Looking forward to it, although it is somehow sad to separate from the “EAACI family”, but also nice to get home to ones own.