Samtök um sárameðferð

Icelandic Wound Healing Society established on October 28th, 2004

In recent years the idea of establishing a wound healing society in Iceland has been discussed more and more often, especially among nurses.

When Baldur Tumi Baldursson, dermatolog and his colleague from Össur hf in Iceland attended the WUWHS conference in Paris in July 2004, they met Finn Gottrup and Henrik Nielsen from EWMA and things started to develop. In connection with this meeting they proposed to start preparation for a wound healing society in cooperation with and assistance from EWMA.

The firm Össur hf volunteered to assist financially with the first step, a meeting with Finn Gottrup and Henrik Nielsen in Reykjavík in August. People from different disciplines and representatives from firms dealing in wound healing products were invited to this meeting. They had all shown interest in the subject. The meeting was very successful.

Finn Gottrup gave a short presentation on wounds, where he drew attention to the high expenses of the community and how important multidisciplinary cooperation is in this connection. Henrik Nielsen introduced EWMA and EWMA´s function and how they could be of assistance in starting an Icelandic Wound Healing Society.

At the meeting a preparative group of ten people was set up. This group consisted of people from the industry and different professions like nurses with different specialities, a docent in nursing at the Faculty of Nursing of the University of Iceland, a dermatologist, vascular surgeon and a physiotherapist.

The group started it´s work by discussing the objectives of establishing a wound healing society. There are many professionals, many different institutes in the health care system with great knowledge and ideas. But often they work rather in isolatation.

The group came to the conclusion that it was of great importance to enhance multidisciplinary cooperation and according to this to gather, expand and spread knowledge about woundhealing and treatment of wounds. It was agreed to to hold a symposium about wounds and to establish an Icelandic woundhealing society in connection with the symposium.

The symposium was held on October 28th. 2004, with excellent keynote speakers. They were Christine Moffat from England, Finn Gottrup and Kirsten Müller from Denmark. Henrik Nielsen represented EWMA.

I want to stress that Kirsten Müller has been a unic support and inspiration for icelandic nurses interested in woundhealing.

The day of the symposium was a great success. 130 participated, everyone yearning to learn about wounds.

At the end of the day The Icelandic Wound Healing Society, “Samtök um sárameðferð” (SumS) had been established with 80 members.

We are looking forward to cooperate with EWMA and other woundhealing societies in Europe and elsewhere.

Guðbjörg Pálsdóttir, Primary Healthcare Nurse in Reykjavík.