Message from the President

Michael Ashworth

Having being a member of the Society for some 27 years I am conscious of the honour that you have conferred on me in choosing me to be your President. I wish to thank my immediate predecessor Prof. Gordan Vujanic for handing on to me a Society re-invigorated and in robust good health. It is my earnest hope that when the time comes for me in my turn to hand over its direction to my successor that I shall be able transmit it in a state of undiminished vigour. The bulk, if not the entirety, of the work of the Society is transacted by the Honorary Officers and Committee and I am grateful to have Officers and a Committee of ability and commitment. I look forward to a harmonious and productive working relationship.

As expressed in our Constitution, the objective of the Society is the promotion of research and expertise in Paediatric and Perinatal Pathology. With members in so many countries operating under many different models of health care delivery, with political circumstances that tend more to fracture than to unite, and with increasingly rapidly changing developments in technology, how can our Society possibly hope to achieve this objective?

Fundamentally, it can do this by being a genuine Society. Our Annual General Meeting must be the time when we come together for the dual purpose of a strong academic programme and to hare our experiences and learn from and support each other. It is for this reason that we must make our AGM a solid success in terms of academic strength but also in a social sense of working together. The next AGM is to be held in Sheffield and I hope as many of you as possible will attend. But, we also have a website that perhaps we do not make enough use of as a vehicle of communication.

We are in the midst of a series of changes to our Constitution to fit it better to the realities of modern practice. At the last AGM in Pittsburgh we tweaked the Committee structure. Further changes are planned on which the membership will decide in due course.

We should be conscious of our traditions and of our past successes. What we have in Paediatric and Perinatal Pathology is unique and to be valued. We should not, however, be fearful of innovation or of discarding ways of working where the evidence shows they should be.

Michael Ashworth
PPS President