The First World Wound Healing Congress, in Melbourne Australia, organized by Mike Stacey and Geoff Sussman was a great success both educationally and socially. Probably one of the most important outcomes was the formation of the new World Union of Wound Healing Societies which will have its second meeting 31 August - 4 September 2004, in Paris, France. This meeting will be organised by Luc Téot, a board member of ETRS through ETRS and the French Wound Healing Society (SFFPC). Members of the different Wound Healing Societies attending the Melbourne meeting formed the new World Union, part of whose remit was to establish three working groups which are as follows:

These working groups are in the process of establishing programmes to meet their goals. Any members of ETRS interested in being part of these working parties should contact the appropriate chairman whose address can be found under the members section.

The presidency of ETRS has been handed over to Mieke Flour from Alexis Desmoulière. Alexis has been an excellent president who has worked hard for ETRS which was exemplified by the extremely successful annual meeting he organised in Bordeaux.

Our annual meeting in 2001 will be in Cardiff, Wales, under the leadership of Keith Harding and he gives details of the meeting overleaf. It looks to be both innovative and stimulating, and I am sure that it will continue to follow and build on the excellent tradition of our past annual meetings.

Lastly at the world meeting in Melbourne in September, Professor Tom Hunt of San Francisco, a pioneer in the field of tissue repair, became very poetic in presenting a poem written by one of his colleagues working in his Wound Healing Laboratory.

This description of wound healing in a poetic manner, as opposed to scientific jargon, is important to remind us that the field of clinical tissue repair is not simply science but is also a humanistic reality.

George W. Cherry
Editor