Dear Colleagues,
You are cordially invited for the Annual General Meeting, Scientific and the Social meeting of the Iraqi Medical Society International (IMSI) on Saturday 24^th October 2009. The meeting is to be held at Radisson Edwardian International Hotel, Heathrow/London.

Hotel address:
Radisson Edwardian Hotels
140 Bath Road, Hayes, Middlesex UB3 5AW
Tel: 020 8757 7904
Link to directions

Summer Meeting/ 7th June 2009
Newport/ Wales
The Friars/ Postgraduate Centre
Royal Gwent Hospital

The Society has held its summer meeting for 2009 on 7^th June in South Wales/UK.

It was a gathering in Newport, the third large city in Wales. At the beginning of the meeting Dr. Mahdi Ismail thanked the members for their efforts to participate in the society’s activities. He then mentioned that the programme for the meeting will include 4 lectures and a special session which will follow the lectures to discuss the future activities of the society.

Mr. Asal Azzidien/ General Surgeon started the scientific programme with his lecture about surgical problems in children. He discussed few surgical emergencies in children based on his vast experience in surgery. He mentioned particularly the subject of testicular pain in children and his policy of open and see to rule out and to manage testicular torsion which could happen at any age in children and young adults. He presented slides from his theatre work in Mosul /Iraq when he managed to repair a major cut of a penis of a child after a circumcision operation went wrong suddenly. Asal mentioned as well that he recently trained about 30 junior doctors from Iraq the basic skills in surgery. The training course was in Istanbul in Turkey with a help from the Royal College of Surgeons/UK.

The second speaker was Dr. Sudad Jawad/ Psychiatrist in Wales. He spoke about a condition of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the best technique for diagnosis and management. He mentioned that ADHD could be more common in boys than girls and it can present itself as inattention with or without hyperactivity with a persistent pattern of impulsiveness.

The management of the ADHD patients may include medications, lifestyle modifications and counselling.

The third speaker in the meeting was Dr. Amer Jafar/ Physician, who presented a summary of the recent medical research activity in Iraq. This review was based on his effort to communicate with our colleagues in Iraq and to view few references related to the health and medical research in homeland.

The last speaker was Mr. Saad Al-fattal/ orthopaedic surgeon with interest in history of Iraq. He managed personally to collect hundreds of photos about old Iraq and he is keen to explain the history behind each of his photos. The title for his presentation in the meeting on 7^th June was ‘Aerial views of old Iraq’.

On 8^th March 09 the Society met in Imperial College London in the presence of a delegation from Iraq. The scientific programme discussed several important subjects. The first speaker was Dr Abbas Latif, Consultant Paediatrician. His presentation was about the autism as a brain development disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior.  Abbas mentioned that about a third to a half of individuals with autism do not develop enough natural speech to meet their daily communication needs. It was mentioned in the discussion that followed the lecture that autistic individuals may have symptoms that are independent of the diagnosis, but that can affect the individual or the family.

The second speaker was Dr. Ali Alhasani, Consultant Radiologist. He mentioned that the clinicians should consider few factors before embarking on certain radiological investigation. Some of these factors are: Non invasiveness / cost effectiveness and high specificity with easy availability and accessibility of the radiology investigation itself.
One of the major development in the field of radiology is the Multislice CT which is a major development in diagnostic imaging. It started with 4 slice in 1998 and in 2001 the 16 slice MDCT was on the market.

In 2004 the 64 slice MDCT technology emerged which enabled the radiologists to perform cardiac CT examination properly. There are 128, 256 and even 320 MDCT at present.
Ali went on to explain few cases that he was dealing with recently.

The third speaker was Dr. Majid Rashid, Consultant Pathologist. He was speaking about the death certification system in UK. He mentioned that according to the update that he was aware of, a medical examiner system might well be in place in UK in the near future, That will make the system in the NHS more similar to the one in USA with regards of the death certification and cremation process. Majid was explaining few details regarding the cause of death and how to fill a death certificate.

The next speaker was Dr Nawfal Shareef, Consultant Paediatrician. His main subject in his presentation was about the up to date management of asthma in children. He was very keen to highlight the fact that you need to keep the treatment easy and simple. However; he acknowledged that there are few difficult cases especially in dealing with asthmatic baby of less than one year old.

Mr Saad Al-Fattal , Orthopaedic surgeon was the next speaker. He was talking about the Iraqi city Mosul and its history using his magnificent photo collection. He presented in the meeting original photos about the main bridge in Mosul and the mosques, Churches and businesses in the old city of Mosul. He described in details the life in the city in 18^th , 19^th and 20^th century Iraq.