Sylvia Asa is Pathologist in Chief at the University Health Network and Toronto Medical Laboratories. She is a Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto and had her postgraduate training in all of the main teaching hospitals in Toronto. Sylvia has had a distinguished career with numerous prizes and awards. She is an active researcher and writer. As a result of these activities she is now a member of many research committees, grant committees and editorial committees, both nationally and internationally. She also maintains an active role in the academic and administrative life of the University of Toronto. She will undoubtedly provide a stimulating day on the subject of Endocrine Pathology. The slide seminar is being co-ordinated by Robin Apel from Brisbane.
Robert Kurman did his medical training in New York and his pathology training in some of the leading hospitals in Boston. In 1973 he was Assistant Chief, Department of Gynaecology and Breast Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington. In 1978 he moved to the Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, and in 1989 he became Director of Gynaecological Pathology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is co-editor of the AFIP Fascicle on Gynaecological Pathology and also Editor of Blaustein’s “Pathology of the Female Genital Tract.” He has had a stellar career, highlighted by numerous prestigious awards. He has published numerous articles and is on the Editorial Board of many of the prominent journals of pathology. He is a much sought after lecturer and will, without doubt, contribute an outstanding day of gynaecological pathology at the Sydney meeting. The co-ordinator of the slide seminar is Richard Jaworski from Sydney.

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The information stand announcing the Congress in Brisbane was manned by Jan McLean, Leah Shander (I.A.P. Congress Organiser) and Tiah Miller from the Congress Organiser, Intermedia which will be responsible for organising the Brisbane meeting.

Scientific Program

This was of the high quality usually found at such meetings of the I.A.P.. An innovation at this Congress was a series of master classes conducted by a pair of speakers for a small audience. Admission to these classes was by registration on the Registration Form.

A review of some of the functions attended by members of the Australasian Division Executive during the Congress

The members of the Executive worked hard to make contact with potential key speakers and delegates for Congress 2004. They also made contacts with potential sponsors. They circulated through the meeting to assess the organisation and to look for ideas for Brisbane, both things to be done, and things to be avoided. Bob Eckstein arranged a dinner on Monday evening which was attended by many of the thirty or so Australian delegates to the Congress. He indicated what the Executive was doing and encouraged the other delegates to make similar observations. The feedback from this group will be quite useful. The social events organised by the Congress were enjoyable and the social contacts made will be useful in the future. The Opening Ceremony was particularly spectacular with a learned dissertation on the famous Dutch artist, Rembrandt, and the finale, in which a group of actors, dressed exactly as the characters in Rembrandt’s famous painting “The Nightwatch”, formed a tableau on stage in front of the painting. The actors were each dressed to represent one of the characters. They posed in front of the painting in the same manner as the subjects.

Other Functions attended by members of the Executive

The Bi-Annual Meeting of the International Executive of the I.A.P. was held on the day before the Congress started. A Council Meeting was held on the morning of the first day. It is at these two meetings that the policy decisions of the I.A.P. are made. They are then presented to the formal Business Meeting which is held during the Congress itself.
At each International Congress, the President of the Congress invites members of the Executives of the various Divisions to a formal dinner. On this occasion the dinner was held in the Grand Hotel close to the city centre. This building began as a monastery. It was then the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, and then a Council chamber for the Burgomasters (Lord Mayors) of the City of Amsterdam. It is now an exclusive hotel.

The Tropen Institute

Above: The entrance foyer to the Tropen Institute.

The dinner was held in a stately room which has served as a refectory for the monastery, boardroom of the company and the council, and now a dining room for special functions. Delegates were transported to the hotel by canal boats. Some of the hotels had jetties outside their front doors. The trip along the canals in the early evening, when the light had not quite faded, was truly beautiful. Many of the canals are lined by houseboats which are permanently moored there. The Dutch do not have curtains drawn at this time of the evening, and the houseboats and the houses lining the canals were a spectacular sight.

The British Division which hosted the meeting, had a small cocktail party to celebrate the XXV anniversary of publication of the journal Histopathology. This was a joint venture of the British Division of the I.A.P. and Blackwell Publishing House (Oxford). The American Registry of Pathology hosted a cocktail party to launch the first two editions of their new series entitled “Non Tumor Pathology Fascicles”. Some of the authors were present and they autographed copies of the books.

The Japanese Division Executive members had a special dinner to which they invited Jack Strong (Treasurer, I.A.P.) and Robin Cooke (Editor, Newsbulletin). The President of the Japanese Division, Bob Osamura presented both of the guests with a special award to commemorate their contributions to the Japanese Division.

As Past President of the History of Pathology Society, Robin Cooke arranged a Walking Tour of the old university city of Leiden. This was sponsored by the company, Sakura, which has its European headquarters in Leiden. The tour was originally planned for one day, but the demand for tickets was such that the tour was offered for two days which were fully booked. The President of Sakura, Mr Kinichi Matsumoto, joined the tour on one of these days. His grandfather established the company Sakura. In the early days it sold microscopes. Mr Matsumoto expanded the company to cover a wide range of laboratory equipment. It now has regional offices in Europe, and in North and South America, as well as in Japan. The Australian agent is Bayer. Sakura has been a major sponsor of the past two International Congresses and will be a sponsor of the Brisbane Congress.

Travelling the canals

Above: Canal houses. The rooflines of the houses indicate the differences in architectural style.

Many of the delegates visited other important cultural tourist attractions in Amsterdam, particularly the State Museum and the Van Gogh Museum. Robin Cooke paid a nostalgic visit to the Tropen Institute (The Institute of Tropical Medicine). He was first introduced to this institution by Professor Rolf ten Seldam, the Foundation Professor of Pathology in Perth. In his early days, Rolf worked in Indonesia and became an international expert in Tropical Medicine. The Tropen Institute was the centre of Dutch interest in Tropical Diseases in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s when Holland had an empire in tropical countries around the world, and when Tropical Medicine was a “glamour” speciality with so much being discovered about infectious diseases at that time.

Through Rolf’s contacts, Robin delivered a special lecture at the Tropen Institute in 1976. In those days it was still an active centre for research and training in Tropical Diseases. It was a grand building with an ornately decorated entrance foyer, which was rather like the entrance to an opera house. The main lecture theatre is still used for lectures of all sorts, but the remainder of the building is now occupied by administrative offices and the research and teaching functions have been disseminated to other institutions.
Each year the European Association of Pathology conducts examinations for a Diploma which is recognised as a specialist qualification in all of the European Union countries. The examination for 2003 was held on the day before the Congress started. There were 28 candidates and Robin Cooke assisted with some pre-examination tutorials.

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Left to right: Patricia Bannatyne (Orange); Bob Collins (Hong Kong); David Davies (Sydney).

Left to right: David Davies; Jan McLean (IAP Secretary); Vince Caruso (Perth); Kon Muller (Hobart).

Andrew Field (Sydney) left; Stan McCarthy (Sydney) right.

Bob Eckstein (Sydney) left; Gordon Harloe (Perth) right.

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Kaiyo Takubo above, and his publication.

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Companies:
Dako
QML Pathology
S&N Pathology
Mater Laboratory Services
Cytyc Thin Prep
PKF Accountants

Individuals:
Dr Ann Warrel

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