Thank you to those of our members who took the time to complete our recent short survey to let us know what we are doing right, where we are going wrong and where we should focus our resources for the future. We are very pleased that your overall satisfaction with ISUOG is high, but we are always aiming to increase our standard of service and efficiency and will especially be considering the areas you highlighted for improvement.
Our survey confirmed that nearly 90% of our members are obstetricians and/or gynecologists, with the majority being specialists with over 10 years experience and we will continue to ensure that our activities will meet the needs of these members. However, this highlights the need for us to find out more about what our other member groups need (radiologists, trainees, sonographers and midwives). We are pressing ahead with plans for that, particularly through our new member surveys, so please let us know if you are interested in helping us. We would particularly like to know how you think we can help with networking opportunities with your peer groups and whether this would be valuable.
The current most valued benefits for our members are the journal, our World Congress and our web lectures and as a result we have just launched a new series of web lectures based on our ISUOG Education course in January 2009.
Thanks to your additional selected priorities, we are now developing more:
Online lectures and courses
Courses and conferences
Online educational tools (currently developing: diagnostic encyclopedia, ultrasound simulator)
Online tutorials
Ask the expert forums
Trainee networking
Courses and resources can also be focused on the areas of special interest highlighted. The top areas requested were fetal echo, 3D/4D imaging, and fetal neuro imaging. Our ISUOG Education program of courses is addressing some of these areas and we will expand on fetal CNS in our next course on congenital anomalies and fetal echocardiography. We are exploring how to help more with 3D/4D imaging.
You also highlighted countries and regions where you feel there are particular training needs. This will help us consider where we need to support more courses and where we might hold future International Scientific Meetings or develop Outreach Programs.
Finally, most of our members still access UOG in hardcopy; don’t forget that all members also have online access to all issues of UOG back to 1995. Just login and enter either your member number or email address, plus password and follow the journal links for direct access! Some of you indicated that for environmental reasons you believe we should be offering online only subscription options and we plan to offer an ‘opt out’ to print journals to explore this issue further (unfortunately our publisher cannot, at present, offer cost savings to this type of membership, but we continue to consider the opportunities).
You can still give us your feedback by clicking on the survey link below:
Member Survey
Thank you to Wiley Blackwell for donating the prize for our member survey prize draw and congratulations to our winner, Angelo Oldrini from Italy!