Perhaps it is increasing age but the need for contributions to the Newsletter seem to come round with increasing frequency as the months go by. I am writing this having just returned from annual leave and before the previous edition of the Newsletter has reached your desks. This a very quiet time of year in the academic world with few meetings but soon the round of meetings will start again and hopefully we will continue to see more and more subscriptions to the European Journal as we move towards 2005.
I hope that those who have been cajoled into providing a contribution for the Newsletter will view the project with renewed enthusiasm. Whilst this time of year is quiet for the Federation, at least in the United Kingdom the hospitals remain active. With newly qualified staff starting work on the 1st August there is a great necessity to curb the enthusiasm for inappropriate examinations especially involving radiation but also to instil in the newly qualified before they get into bad habits the value of ultrasound and its limitations. This has always been an uphill task and perhaps it is because staffing is short in the summer months that we miss our opportunity and bad habits are already established by the time the holidays are over and the colder/darker days are upon us.
As well as encouraging subscriptions to our Journal, with the new academic year it is a good time to be resolving to submit scientific articles for publication. The Journal has an established place and will go from strength to strength if the highest quality articles are submitted.
