Fabiola Martinez-Licona
Dear community, today, I start a new challenge with the most extraordinary enthusiasm possible as the new IFMBE Clinical Engineering Division Board Chair.
The new CED Board that I honor to chair is a team of clinical engineers, leaders in their regions, and excellent people. The voting process represents the degree of commitment we have to clinical engineering globally. The number and diversity of candidates is a sample of the growth in number and experience of a community that is forging a place in the field of health with its own personality and potential value.
Before us is a series of challenges that will allow the consolidation of our community. This could not have been possible were it not for the effort, dedication, enthusiasm, and passion of both the previous Board and its leader, our dear engineer Tom Judd, to whom we owe, among other things, a community of more than 500 members from all over the world. We are walking on the shoulders of giants, giants like Tom, Yadin David, James Wear, Saide Calil, Paolo Lago, Mladen Poluta, Li Bin, and Kallirroi Stavrianou, among many others who helped pave the way to reach not only clinical engineers from all over the world but also strategically key players in the field of health.
Special mention deserves the extreme collaboration that we have had with the WHO through Adriana Velazquez, who, in her role as a leader in medical devices, has raised challenges of great importance to improve the quality of patient care through regional and global initiatives that address the most relevant problems of human health. I am fortunate to have known her for a long time. I can testify how her participation has had a definitive and positive impact on actions that have yielded knowledge and experience for the benefit of clinical engineering and its practitioners. Thanks to efforts like Adriana’s, it is possible to think positively about a future of opportunities and achievements in health for the benefit of the population.
One of the milestones produced in this last period is creating a partner with whom we will strengthen efforts to advance the objectives that we have as a division. The Global Clinical Engineering Alliance (GCEA) is an organization whose synergy with the CED has allowed the development of transcendental activities such as the global week of Clinical Engineering and the 4th International Clinical Engineering and Health Technology Management Congress (ICEHTMC) held virtually last year. Organizations such as the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE) have also been part of the recent history of the CED. It is my purpose to intensify the relationship with these and other instances in such a way to strengthen the presence of the clinical engineer in the world.
It is my commitment not only to keep up the pace but also to advance in the consolidation of clinical engineering through activities such as webinars, the commemoration of the global day of the clinical engineer, the participation in relevant aspects of medical devices in the WHO, the integration of a worldwide network to share, expose and develop clinical engineering, etc. At the same time, and with everyone’s help, we will also launch new projects and initiatives that enrich the experience of being and doing clinical engineering.
References
Global Clinical Engineering Alliance. (2022). Obtained from
https://www.globalcea.org/home
International Clinical Engineering and Health Technology Management Congress IV ICEHTHCM. (s.f.). Obtained from https://www.globalcea.org/icehtmc2021?hsLang=en
AAMI. (s.f.). Obtained from https://www.aami.org
ACCE. (s.f.). Obtained from https://accenet.org/Pages/Default.aspx