MANAGEMENT

Oscar A Mendiz, MD.
SOLACI, President

Assuming SOLACI presidency represents for me a source of personal pride and a strong commitment to meet expectations of those who proposed me and all members of SOLACI inside and outside Latin America.

Through this letter we initiated a communication, we will maintain during my presidency, so that everyone is informed about the activities conducted, projects and, as we deem appropriate, of the problems. On the other hand, we generate in our website a reverse communication channel for our partners to send us your comments or concerns..

SOLACI, despite his youth, has grown at a rapid pace and enter it entails several challenges which are worth highlighting a few:

Administrative and accounting structure organization, requires a severe revision to make it more professional and efficient, management plan initiated by Dr. Dario Echeverri which will continue in a deepen way. Following this goal, we have incorporated a new CEO and modifications will be made in the offices, generating mergers and complementarity between them. Reforms will be made for the impact of inflation and labor costs in Argentina in a way organization is not affected; we will maintain a stable income as in recent years, which are unlikely to change in the immediate future, but we will work over medium-term plans in order to keep stability.

While SOLACI is a society of members, we will work closely with societies in each country to join forces and promote the achievements to improve the supply of public services to our members. These strategic partnerships, some already underway, including Latin American and other societies around the world. We will be updating, strengthening and improving, where possible, the standing and incorporating new.

SOLACI Congress has grown dramatically and is a global landmark event in our specialty. This is a reality that brings with it the challenge of consolidation and improvement. Each time I have worked in the organization I have tried to promote issues, large or small, aimed to a professionalization of it, in that sense, we have developed a logo that identifies the congress, despite small variations that have to change host country each year. Software has been incorporated and allows the efficient management of scientific program, communication with guest teachers and organization of their agendas, besides the management of abstracts and edited cases, similar to that used by other major world events. We introduced also a travel policy for our guest lecturers, we start with the congressional newspaper (Daily SOLACI whose numbers corresponding to the Congress of Chile 2011 and Argentina 2010 can be found on our website), and the night symposia ( “evening symposium”). Moreover, the introduction of the general coordinator, who works with the President of Congress and local societies, allowed, to some extent, homogenize events, concentrating service providers to improve quality and reduce costs.

Despite the above, biggest challenge is represented by the itinerant nature when alternate through different scenes, with authorities annually changing, which in a way makes difficult transmission of experience and increases the probability that some errors were repeated in a period of time.

Global economic crisis, lack of sustained growth in the number of interventions in the region and increasing legal restrictions from sponsors, make the investment to remain stable while costs rise, creating a challenge to preserve quality and profitability, which contributes to sustenance of SOLACI, which does not charge membership fee. This reality has forced us to reduce some social activities that gleam pre-congress activities (dinner shows) and concentrate the live case transmissions, but on the other hand, we have invested more money in improving audiovisual and live transmissions cases and this was reflected in the last two editions.

Local societies strengthening, and the advance of other international societies, as well as the large supply over global level, generated a major challenge to keep interest and participation of partners on SOLACI activities. This participation in seminars, conferences, website, registration and attendance at the joint meetings of SOLACI in major events (such as TCT or PCR) are very important for us to consolidate what my predecessors have done, and for that we can work together in the development of new activities.

Website has been updated and improved to fit their content, as well as competition, which is very important in terms of variety and quality. Users response has been very positive, so we will work to enhance and improve such content “zooming in” to readers and users and I hope you can notice it very soon.

Finally, I think for many people who work in SOLACI several years now, the biggest challenges are represented by our interest in increasing the number of partners, generating interest in the massive participation of them and consolidate new leaders committed to SOLACI mission which throw over time in the desired direction.

With affection and greatest respect for all of you, I send a cordial greeting.

President
Dr. Oscar Mendiz, Argentina.

Vicepresident
Dr. Jamil Abdalla Saad, Brasil.

Secretary
Dr. Ricardo Lluberas, Uruguay.

Treasurer
Dr. José Álvarez, Argentina.

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