Dr Gonzalo Barreiro message on the beginning of 2017

Dear WFSA Council and Committee Colleagues,

I wanted to get in touch with you during these first days of 2017.

First of all, I want to express my gratitude to all of you for your dedication and commitment to the WFSA, your global anaesthesiology organisation. I know that all of you are incredibly busy people. And yet despite this, you have put yourselves forward to take up roles as Members of our Council and Committees, which shows your commitment to improving our speciality and giving our colleagues and their patients worldwide the support and backup they need and deserve.

You are the key people who help the WFSA to make a difference. We have many challenges ahead of us until Prague 2020, and I am fully confident that with your collaboration, we will not only achieve the goals we have already set ourselves, but will also be able to achieve many other important ones.

The WFSA co-ordinates and participates in a wide range of programme activities, so I advise you to visit our website regularly to keep up to date with these. Please also do not hesitate to send us your ideas, proposals and feedback. We need your input to work effectively, so I ask that you make “being proactive” more than just a slogan. Like any large organisation, communication is key and I am committed to making it work as well as possible.

One of the key goals which we must achieve over the next four years is generating the income required to support our fantastic programmes. In order to do this, last year we launched the Fund a Fellow campaign, which aims to raise money from individuals for the WFSA’s 50+ annual Fellowships providing anaesthesia sub-speciality training for anaesthesiologists from low and middle income countries (http://www.wfsahq.org/training-programs/50-wfsa-fellowship-training-programs.)

It is very important that all members of the Council and Committees become charitable donors of the WFSA and support this programme. Not only because small regular donations added together make a big difference, but also because it demonstrates to those outside of the WFSA the trust and commitment of our own members in the work that we do. This gesture is of incredible help when we go out to ask for external financial support. That is why, if you have not already done so, I ask that you all use this link http://www.wfsahq.org/get-involved/fundafellow to become a donor, even if it is only for a small monthly amount.

Finally, I believe that the WFSA gives us the opportunity to express our gratitude to life for enabling us to match our passion with our profession and that this is why we strive to give the same opportunity to our colleagues around the world. So with that in mind, lets keep working together to improve patient care and access to safe anaesthesia worldwide. Because safe anaesthesia saves lives.

A great hug, yours sincerely,

Gonzalo

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Dr Gonzalo Barreiro

WFSA President

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