Two hundred and twenty-two participants from 61 countries as well as EFCC, IUPAC and IRMM attended the IXth General Conference in Antalya, Turkey from 61 countries as well as EFCC, IUPAC and IRMM. The Executive Board (EB) was delighted by the attendance that was up from 150 participants at the previous General Conference.
This Conference, as with all others, provided the opportunity for all the Divisions and Committees to hold meetings and to interact with each other. Immediately before the GC the Executive Board met and also held meetings with the leaders of the Divisions.

We planned a special program for the National and Corporate Representatives so that their viewpoints and suggestions could be heard.
The topics for discussion were selected from ideas sent in by National and Corporate Representatives, and those from the EB.

Past Presidents, except for Ren� Dybkaer, who was not well and could not attend, ably replaced by Daniel Mazziotta from the EB, led these discussions.

The topics were as follows:

1. �The mission and Future of Laboratory Medicine�
   Chair: Prof. Matthew McQueen
2. �Education programs and training needs especially in developing countries�
   Chair: Prof. Daniel Mazziotta
3. "The Laboratory�s role in improving the quality of patient care�
   Chair: Prof. G�rard Siest
4. �Linking IFCC activities with clinical associations�
   Chair: Prof. Donald Young
5. �Developing diagnostic guidelines"
   Chair: Prof. Mathias M�ller

The results of these discussion groups were presented on the last afternoon. There were some excellent suggestions that the EB will consider carefully.

Since I returned home, I have received many positive e-mails about these discussion groups.
I discussed some of the major achievements by the EB over the last two and a quarter years. They are as listed below:

• Developed a mission statement.
• Developed a vision for IFCC, and set the top five priorities for 2006-8.
• Increased the number of Full Members from 72 to 78. This will shortly be 79 as the Ukraine gets accepted.
• Increased the number of Affiliate Members (currently 6).
• Increased the numbers of Corporate Members from 30 to 37.
• Developed corporate support for special projects, especially for developing countries.
• Worked with Professor Young and AACC to make Young�s Effects available free of charge on-line to developing countries.
• Worked on an agreement to make EFCC a part of IFCC. This option is open to other Federations, if they so wish.
• Increased the donation to the other Federations to 10,000CHF per annum in order to help with educational and scientific endeavors in those regions.
• EuroMedLab, organized by the Netherlands Association for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, was highly successful both scientifically and financially. We thank them and Emmezeta Congressi for this success. The work of the Scientific Division Divisions should be integrated with the other Divisions.

I then presented the Executive Board�s top priorities for 2006-8:

1) Integrated Projects

• The Education and Management Division will assist with educational materials concerning new standards and reference methods.
• The Communications and Publications Division will be sure that the information is posted on our web, assist with needed monographs, etc.
• The Committee on Congresses and Conferences will ensure that IFCC meetings will contain sessions devoted to the newest work from SD.

2) Improvement of Public Relations is of high priority

• We must work through CPD to make our Member Societies and the public aware of IFCC activities.

3) Education must be emphasized

• We must develop educational programs to help not only our members, but clinicians and patients as well. We must continue to provide specialized educational programs such as the ones in evidence-based medicine and in analytical quality.

4) Assisting developing countries must be a priority

• Improving analytical quality is a must.
• We must encourage these countries to take advantage of the greatly expanded Visiting Lecture Program, and the Professional Scientific Exchange program.
• In addition the availability of �Young�s Effects� on-line and the new program of travel scholarships should help.

5) Reflect better that Laboratory Medicine is part of the name of our organization

We should seek areas in which we can expand our scientific activities such as in Microbiology and Virology. To achieve this, we should consider setting up working groups in these areas.

Ares where we feel that we have not yet succeeded:

• Our biggest problem in communication has been the difficulties of having a user friendly and excellent website.

I am happy to tell you that we have just signed a contract for the design and implementation of a new website. This will take about six months to complete.

• We have not yet been able to work on other areas in Laboratory Medicine. SD was extremely tied up in so many other projects and in the HbA1c story.

We have been very successful in getting corporate support for major IFCC projects, and we are extremely appreciative of this. This is listed below:

• Ortho Clinical Diagnostics: 100,000 euros alternate years to support a bi-annual Conference on Clinical Diagnosis and the Laboratory.
• Abbott Diagnostics: 40,000 euros annually to support the Visiting Lecturer Program especially for developing countries.
• Roche Diagnostics Gmbh: 40,000 euros annually to provide travel scholarships for young scientists from developing countries to attend major Congresses and Conferences.
• Labs are Vital program: a partnership with Abbott Laboratories.

This program is one that emphasizes the value of the laboratory professional both inside the health care system and to the general public.

• A new award entitled The IFCC Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Practice of Laboratory Medicine and Patient Care supported by Ortho Clinical Diagnostics.

Other support was provided for a new Award:

• The IFCC Robert Schaffer Award for Distinguished Achievements in Advancing the Science of Standards in Laboratory Medicine. This is supported by the US National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI)

We are grateful for these new additions to our programs and awards as well as for the already well-established support for awards and programs.

We offered a special thank you to Professor Tomris Ozben from Turkey without whose help we could not have managed the local details. We also much appreciated the IFCC Office staff who worked extremely hard and for long hours to make this Conference a success. They are: Lisa Ionescu, Paola Bramati, Caterina Balzaretti and Silvia Carugo, the  IT contract person.

We also extended our thanks to P�ivi Laitinen and Ghassan Shannan for their assistance with this conference. P�ivi did a great job being the �master of Ceremonies�.

My personal appreciation was expressed to the IFCC Executive Board, the Past Presidents, the Division Chairs and all the officers of IFCC for all their hard work in making IFCC successful.

The Conference ended up with a very lively Gala dinner at which there was excellent food, local wines, dancing and even a belly dancer! 

"The whole object or an organization is to get cooperation, to get each individual the benefit of all the knowledge and all the experience of all individuals�.

Hamilton McFarland Barksdale, Dupont, 1909

I think this old saying really came true at this General Conference!