EFSUMB Newsletter meets ASUM - the Australasian Society for Ultrasound in Medicine

Caroline Hong

ASUM - promoting excellence in ultrasound

ASUM has 2900 members in Australia and New Zealand with the head office based in Sydney. Their purpose is all about "promoting excellence in ultrasound". The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ASUM, Caroline Hong, has a background experience and qualifications in dentistry, health administration, association management and company directorship.

"My career started in dentistry as a dental surgeon in 1983 in Australia, and from then on I worked in the Australian health care systems, advancing to a career to become the CEO of the Dental Association in 1997 and then I moved to my present medical association management role as CEO of ASUM in 2001", Caroline Hong says. "I have been involved in managing and leading the Society in my full time professional CEO role in promoting excellence in ultrasound, initially with only 5 staff in 2001 and now I have 10 staff. We now also own our new secretariat office with 2 training rooms in Sydney."

The organization in ASUM is very different from EFSUMB, where we only have one employee, the General Secretary Gianna Stanford, whereas the Executive Bureau, the Board of Directors and the Committee members are elected for their position."What does it mean to be CEO?" "I suppose, in the association language, I am known as a professional association executive, which means I am experienced and qualified to be an association executive, understanding all the legal and financial aspects of leading an association, and reporting to a board of directors, who are elected by the members. My core values in leading and managing ASUM are threefold, namely, service excellence, successful partnerships with stakeholders and raising the image of the society", Caroline Hong explains, "Everything I do for ASUM, has to somehow make me feel that I am contributing to its advancement and in achieving the objectives of ASUM, as well as being able to live by my three core values."

ASUM is a Not-For-Profit organization registered in Australia as a company limited by guarantee, and they are subject to all the legal and compliance regulations of the Australian Company Act. All elected councillors are registered as legal company directors of ASUM and the CEO is registered as the Company Secretary as well as CEO. "While working for ASUM is incredibly satisfying, the role of CEO is not easy. As long as I feel I am still adding value to ASUM and being appreciated in what I do, I will keep doing it."

Opening of the new ASUM office in June 2007

Not-for-profit organizations attract a different kind of staff. They have to have a sense of community good and altruism in themselves to succeed and to be happy working for the Society. "I am fortunate in that sense, that I have a great team of staff and a great team of more than 300 member volunteers who do work for us in various disciplines. I also think I treat them all very well, just as my council does to my staff and me. My key staff includes Keith Henderson, Education Manager and my Executive assistant, Iris Hui, both of whom are my star performers!"

"Something which not everyone knows about and which we are all very proud of achieving as a society was to gain international standards accreditation ISO:9000:2001 Quality Management Systems, which was awarded to ASUM in 2004 for "Management of ultrasound association administration, publication, education, examination and registration activities".

Sydney and harbour Bridge

ASUM Publications

The official journal of ASUM "Ultrasound Bulletin" is published quarterly. "Usually we keep the most current 2 issues inaccessible to non members but anyone in the world can read past issues online on our website www.asum.com.au in the Bulletin section. We have an Editor, Co-Editor, Production editor and a publisher - it is a mighty team of talented people working on the Bulletin each quarter."

"We also have ASUM newsletters which we send out by mass email to our branches and to our members periodically, and frequently, to announce upcoming meetings, workshops, Travelling Teaching Fellowships, request members for information, announce relevant news, announce scholarships and awards or even to ask for placement for the ASUM-DSDU CADUCEUS Scholar. For example, we successfully placed the next CADUCEUS scholar with Prof Jon Hyett in Sydney through the ASUM email broadcast newsletter to our members."

"I write a lot for various publications and interviews. At present I also write for the WFUMB 2009 congress e-newsletter which goes out to a worldwide audience to update them on our exciting event coming to Sydney."

Qualifications in ultrasound are recognized by the governments in Australia and New Zealand

"How is education in ultrasound organised within your society?" "That is a very long question, Michael!" Caroline Hong starts, "I have an Education Committee and also a Full time Education Manager, Professional Development Officer and several Education administration officers working in my team."

ASUM awards three main qualifications, which are recognized by the governments and the professional colleges in Australia and New Zealand as the standard for the practice of ultrasound. "We award the Diploma in Diagnostic Ultrasound (DDU), the Diploma of Medical Ultrasonography (DMU), Diploma of Medical Ultrasonography Asia (DMU Asia) and the Certificate in Clinician Performed Ultrasound (CCPU). There is a lot of information on our website www.asum.com.au about each of these qualifications."

To receive qualifications you have to sit in for examinations

"I heard that you have examinations", Michael says. "Yes, the candidates for the DDU, DMU, DMU (Asia) all have to sit for examinations, consisting of many parts. The CCPU is a new qualification and at present we have 6 disciplines and still developing more, working with various medical colleges and societies."

Dr Andrew Ngu, Dr Caroline Hong, Dr Matthew Andrews, Prof Ron Benzie, Dr David Rogers at ASUM RANZCR meeting

Education is organized through many means, involving courses, workshops, online resources, DVDs and Video lending library, Bulletin articles, Scholarship placements, Teaching Fellowship presentations and others. "We see it as our role to cooperate with and offer programs that complement the educational programs offered by Australian and New Zealand Universities and other providers. Our website www.asum.com.au shows all the educations providers in the Links section."

"Also, we do offer examination preparation courses and learning guides. We are unique in that sense with our learning guides are very relevant and useful to members who sit for our examinations to help them attain the knowledge and skills expected of expert practitioners in the clinical environment. We also offer courses for the various disciplines in the CCPU to help members attain their CCPU."

In addition to all this, ASUM also is an accrediting body and accredits courses, for example, to accredit the courses offered by a number of providers for the ASUM CCPU.

ASUM also runs the Nuchal Translucency courses for our members in partnership with the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Each year we run the Multidisciplinary workshops covering up to 6 or 8 disciplines and an Annual Scientific Meeting in major cities. ASUM branches also conduct smaller meetings and workshops for the doctors and sonographers in their region.

"I think to sum up, ASUM's main activity is education and we certainly do a lot in providing plenty of opportunities for our members to learn, present and to network and share knowledge and form friendships," Caroline explains, "but we try to have fun in our work, in our courses, workshops and meetings."

The impressive website of ASUM

ASUM is in the process of upgrading the site, so do log in periodically at www.asum.com.au to keep up with our news. "We are also reconstructing the ONLINE Handbook which will serve as a useful resource to people all over the world, providing images and notes and acting almost like an online ultrasound encyclopedia. This will be available again from late January 2009."

And of course, there is a lot that is available to anyone in the world on the Bulletin section of our website, as long as you remember that the recent 2 issues are usually not accessible except to members only. But all the previous issues are available online.

The website also links into the www.wfumb2009.com website which will show you all the exciting things ASUM has planned for us in Sydney. "The WFUMB 2009 world medical ultrasound congress is very unique as we will have presentation lectures as well as many hands on workshops. Workshops are labour intensive to organize but ASUM recognizes the demand and value of these hands on experiential learning workshops, which will be booked out very early due to popular demand."

ASUM is also unique in this region because they are the recognized peak body to set the standards, policies and guidelines for ultrasound. A lot of hospitals, administrators and policy makers also refer to its policies and statements on the website for decision making. Look at the Policies section on the website www.asum.com.au.

Level of competencies

"Do your courses follow different levels of competencies similar to the EFSUMB guidelines?" Michael asks. Caroline says, "Although we are different, we follow different levels of competencies, similar to EFSUMB. ASUM prescribes the different competencies in the DMU learning guides and in the CCPU curriculum guidelines. There are different competencies in the DDU and the DMU Asia as well.. so the answer to your question is YES."

National conferences and the WFUMB 2009 meeting

An Australasian multidisciplinary workshop is held once a year which is attended by 400-500 delegates. The annual Australasian Annual Scientific Meeting is attended by 400 - 700 delegates. In 2008, the ASUM MDW was in Sydney in March and the ASUM Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland New Zealand in September. In any one year, about 1400 delegates attend our ASUM workshops and meetings, which means an active participation rate.

"In 2009, we will be incorporating both of these meetings into the WFUMB 2009 World Medical Ultrasound Congress program starting Sunday 30 August to Thursday 3 September 2009 in the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre. Prof Rob Gibson, our new Congress Convenor, and the Organising Committee have all worked very hard to bring you a world class program, certainly one not to be missed in one's life time!"

WFUMB 2009 promotion

ASUM is unique

Caroline Hong: "ASUM is unique. Its membership comprises sonographers, radiologists, obstetricians & gynaecologists, cardiac surgeons, vascular surgeons, general physicians, sports medicine physicians, nuclear medicine physicians, perinatal ultrasound physicians, breast surgeons, and others. We also have corporate companies as members."

"I would say that the majority of all our members practice ultrasound. That is why when we have trade exhibitors at our events they have a high quality business audience. Similarly for the participants, they have many issues in common and often find our events very useful for networking and forming new business and professional networks."

ASUM expectations and hopes for the future relations to EFSUMB

"I have never had an opportunity to attend an EFSUMB congress nor to meet and establish strong links with EFSUMB officers and members", Caroline Hong explains, "Similarly I think EFSUMB officers have never been invited to attend an ASUM congress either. We do have formal links with individual Asian societies, AFSUMB, DSDU and BMUS."

"I think it is an oversight and I would like to see that changed for the future because there is a lot to learn from each other and share with each other in our societies and the work we do for our members. At present, there is a strong link with ultrasound societies in Denmark and UK." The Danish collaboration is an annual exchange in scholars and to present an invited speaker each other's conferences. The BMUS- ASUM exchange program involves the presidents taking turns in alternate years to present as an invited speaker at each other's conference.

"My hope and my expectation is that ASUM and EFSUMB should collaborate more and work more cooperatively to promote common objectives in ultrasound excellence and ultrasound education."

"I was overseas-born and having lived in a diverse cultural upbringing, I feel the more that people meet and talk to each other, even though we all look differently, dress differently, speak differently, there is one universal goal that we share and that is a better health outcomes for our patients. We all do that by ensuring that our doctors and sonographers are equipped with the best knowledge and the best technology possible to attain that in their work, by our part we play in our societies in creating opportunities for learning and sharing information."

"Thank you Caroline, for accepting to be part of this interview". "Thank you Michael. I really enjoy knowing you, speaking with you and having this opportunity to express my views in this interview. You can consider ASUM as a friend of EFSUMB. My President, Council and the Organising Committee and I hope to see and welcome all members of EFSUMB to Sydney at the WFUMB 2009 world medical ultrasound congress."

For information on the World Congress in Sydney next year please www.wfumb2009.com for more updates.