Interview by Professor Michael Bachmann Nielsen October 2009 - EFSUMB Newsletter meets Switzerland

Table of Contents

Dear friends

This year brought a new challenge for the Newsletter: too few pages even though we increased from last year. As a consequence we only have 1 page in issue 6 and this will be the interview with Switzerland.

I will look forward to seeing most of you if not all in Edinburgh next month.

Best regards from wonderful Copenhagen

Michael

Population: 7.8 million

Area: 41,284 km²

Capital: Bern

EFSUMB members: 2677

Jean-Yves Meuwly was the Congress President for the 17th EUROSON Congress in Geneva in 2005, and has been a member of EFSUMB’s Publications Committee from 2007.

Dr Jean-Yves Meuwly is Associate Professor of Radiology in the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional radiology of the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is head of the ultrasound unit of the Department, in charge of Urogenital and women imaging, as well as a board member of the Swiss Society of Ultrasound and Treasurer for the last 14 years. "The fi rst time I’ve touched an ultrasound probe was during my first year of residency in radiology in 1987. I was working with a colleague of the famous Francis Weill, from Besançon. I was really not impressed by the quality of these pictures, but rather by the imagination of my colleagues able to identify some anatomic structures amongst these black and white clouds. Since that time, I’ve fundamentally changed my opinion about ultrasound, convinced that it is the most convenient imaging modality: rapidly available, non expensive, non ionizing, requiring close contact with the patient and fi ne clinical knowledge."

Training in ultrasound in Switzerland

The federal authorities recognize the Swiss Society of Ultrasound (SSUM-SGUM) as the offi cial representative of medical ultrasound specialists. The Society is in charge of the training, certifi cation and continuous medical education for all medical specialists who want to learn ultrasound after their board examination. Radiologists, gastroenterologists, gynecologists, urologists and angiologists have their own education standards. All other specialists have to follow the educational program of the Society in order to be certified.

The training program is structured stepwise: First the trainee has to attend an introduction course. After this fi rst course, he has to perform a certain number of ultrasound examinations; half of them have to be with supervision. Then there are advanced courses and then a closure course. Thirty to forty such courses are organized each year. Naturally they have to be acknowledged by our Society and they are listed on our website www.sgum.ch.

After completion of all courses, in order to get certifi cation, the candidate has to submit a folder with the different certificates of participation and the reports of the requested ultrasound examinations. The images of all these examinations should be available for assessment.

The candidates may follow diff erent learning ways, according to their clinical interest: Abdomen, Musculoskeletal, Gynecology, Pediatric, Head and Neck, Vascular or Breast. The decision to proceed to a final examination is being considered.

The Swiss Newsletter – SGUM/SSUM Bulletin

The newsletter of the Swiss Society of Ultrasound is printed in Ultraschall in der Medizin/European Journal of Ultrasound, with news from the Society and program of courses.

The SSUM/SGUM website

All the details about the Swiss Society of Ultrasound are available at www.sgum.ch. All the courses are listed on these pages. Furthermore, many interesting cases are regularly published. As of November 2009 a total of 172 cases are available.

National meetings in Switzerland

Every year the Society organizes the "Ultrasound School" in Davos, the last one was in June. This meeting is fundamentally focalized on refresher courses and state-of-the-art lectures. Seven hundred to nine hundred attend each year. "Our colleague has developed during these meetings the concept of the "Sonohöhle", the "Ultrasound cave" where practical training is performed and where everybody may ask and try what they always wanted to know but never dared to do."

The Society also takes part in the annual Dreiländertreff en, where the German, Austrian and Swiss Society take turns in hosting the meeting.

Membership

"We have only few sonographers in Switzerland (most of them in my ultrasound unit!). The status of the Society specifi es that all persons involved and interested with sonography may become members of the Society. Thus we have a majority of physicians in the Society, with some sonographers and physicists."

The Swiss Society of Ultrasound in one of the largest in Europe, with more than 2600 active members. "My estimate would be that approximately 80% of all people performing ultrasound in Switzerland are members of the Society".