Report General Treasurer Anders Bergenfelz, General Treasurer ISS/SIC
of residence, and stratified according to the World Bank as: high income, upper middle income, lower middle income and low-income countries. The reason for the change in fee structure is twofold:
An extraordinary General Assembly of the International Society of Surgery ISS/ SIC was held on Wednesday the 24th of October 2018 in conjunction with the Congress of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) in Boston. Except for some changes to the Constitution of the ISS/ SIC, the most important decision related to a new fee structure of the ISS/SIC, which will be implemented in 2019. The annual fee will depend on your country
1. Fairness for the members in the middle- and low-income countries 2. We need to grow in the middle- and low-income countries. Currently, only 23% of our membership resides in the low- and middle-income countries.
To complement the decision regarding the new fee structure, the application process to become an ISS/SIC member will be electronic, simplified, and with rapid communication of the decision. We therefore encourage all ISS/SIC members to work actively to recruit new members for the society. Anders Bergenfelz General Treasurer ISS/SIC
To be able to change the fee structure, the ISS/SIC has decided to invest of our reserves. The return of the investment (new members), will be evaluated by the ISS/ SIC council.
Report Editor in Chief WJS Julie Ann Sosa, Editor in Chief WJS
Hello and fall greetings from San Francisco to members of the ISS/SIC! This is my second contribution to the newsletter as Editor in Chief of the World Journal of Surgery; simply put, we have been busy! This summer, David Watson MBBS, MD, PhD, FRACS, FRCSEd (hon), FAHMS joined our team of internationally renowned associate editors, replacing Ari Leppäniemi, MD PhD, a gastrointestinal surgeon from the Meilahti Hospital in Finland Dr Leppäniemi faithfully served as associate editor since 2005. Professor Watson is Professor and Head of Surgery at Flinders University, and works
concurrently as an esophagogastric surgeon at Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, South Australia. His interests include gastroesophageal reflux, and esophageal & gastric cancer. For more than 25 years, he has led clinical and laboratory research addressing benign and malignant esophageal disease, integrating laboratory, clinical and population research streams. He has published 400 papers and book chapters, led the development of Australian national guidelines for the management of esophageal and gastric cancer, and contributed to national guidelines for the management of Barrett’s esophagus. Professor Watson holds the Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professorship at Flinders University. We are thrilled to have him as a member of our editorial team.
David Watson, Associate Editor WJS
Our associate editors gathered in New York City in August for our biennial retreat; we spent a day and a half together at the Springer headquarters reviewing achievements for the year thus far and formulating strategy going forward. There was tremendous energy, discussion, and creativity, and many new ideas were generated. As a team-building exercise, we took a cooking class together and then created a dinner meal from scratch that was delicious; synergistic collaboration in the kitchen bodes well for great teamwork in the boardroom around journal strategy. Thanks to our publisher Yvonne Chan and managing editor Laura Shearer Hunter for orchestrating the event.
December 2018
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