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The 2nd Society for Endocrinology Autumn Endocrine Retreat will be held at Milton Hill House, Steventon, Oxfordshire from 16-18 October 2009. This initiative aims to further meet the educational needs of trainee members not already addressed by the Society. The retreat will: provide an informal setting for PhD students/early post-docs to gain experience in presenting work; encourage trainee members to actively participate in the event and provide networking opportunities. Registration for this meeting is now open at the website below, and will close on 31 July 2009. Read about last year's retreat and find out first hand how students benefited from the experience at the link below.

Register here

Reports from last year's retreat

E3 – Enhancing Excellence in Endocrinology is an educational initiative dedicated to the provision of personal and professional development for those working in adult and paediatric endocrinology. E3 is pleased to announce the forthcoming high-level personal and professional skills training experience for senior leaders on 24–25 September at the Warwick University Conference Centre. The course is aimed at consultants in adult and paediatric endocrinology who have been in their consultant post for at least 5 years.

'Senior Leaders' is a 2-day course being delivered in association with the Society for Endocrinology for a maximum of 20 senior leaders. The course is comprised of discursive plenary sessions and workshops delivered by professionals from leading healthcare organisations and communication and business skills trainers. You will be able to attend one of the following workshops on Day 2: Challenging conversations and the 8 step coaching model; Situational leadership; Change leadership and working smarter; Negotiation skills.

Attendance is limited and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis, so please register your interest early by visiting the E3 website (at the link below) where you can register to become a member of E3 and enrol in the course. For further information, contact the E3 Secretariat: Tel: 020 7632 1849, Fax: 020 7632 1970, Email: e3secretariat@litmus-mme.com.

E3 website

The supplier of licensed phenoxybenzamine ("Dibenyline") capsules, Goldshield Pharmaceuticals, has experienced manufacturing difficulties with this product, and are currently out of stock. They are working to resolve the problem, but say that the product is unlikely to be available before the end of August 2009.

Although Goldshield are the sole suppliers of UK licensed phenoxybenzamine capsules, phenoxybenzamine capsules are available abroad and a number of companies specialise in importing unlicensed medicines for use on an individual patient basis. Under the medicines legislation, doctors can prescribe unlicensed medicines but they do so on their own responsibility, and are fully liable for their patients' welfare.

The Society is maintaining close contact with the Principal Pharmacist at the Department of Health and the UK Head of Goldshield Pharmaceuticals and we will keep you updated on further developments.

The second Regional Clinical Cases meeting will take place at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 4 December 2009. The first highly successful meeting was held in Birmingham in association with the Midlands Endocrine Club. The afternoon will be similar to the London Clinical Cases meeting and will consist of ten oral communication presentations made up from high scoring submitted abstracts. The evening will see the Caledonian Society’s annual meeting hosting a guest speaker and a prize lecture.

If you wish to submit a case for this meeting all information will be available shortly at the website below. In the meantime if you have any questions please contact the conference secretariat at conferences@endocrinology.org or call +44 (0) 1454 642 240.

Regional clinical cases

From the end of June, Society members will be amongst the first to access a new website, providing a single gateway to exciting and innovative services, including tools to encourage communication and collaboration, as well as more convenient payment services. The BioSciAlliance website (www.bioscialliance.org) will offer a range of services to members of the associated societies. Services include: membership renewal; access to BioScientifica abstract management and registration systems; a single interface to update all societies’ membership details; a broad search facility to locate collaborators and other contacts. The website will be offered to all clients of the BioScientifica Secretariat service.

BioSciAlliance will enable members to build their own personal profiles, and share these with colleagues and friends through a simple web address. Within the website, members will be able to search the membership lists of all societies of which they are a member, to find colleagues based on their geographical location, interests or areas of research. It will also include a calendar service, to allow members to browse and search BioScientifica World Calendar of Events, and a news service, presenting small articles on a range of biomedical specialities.

BioSciAlliance

The National Endocrine Nursing Conference 2009 is a three-day residential course to be held at the University of Northumbria on 7-9 September 2009. This meeting is RCN accredited and will focus on the thyroid gland. The conference programme and registration is now available at the link below. If you would like to present a poster at the meeting, please see the website below for further details.

Nursing conference 2009

The Society is pleased to announce a new initiative - the Postgraduate Essay Prize. A prize of £1,000 will be awarded to the winning entry, which must be on a topical endocrine subject and readily understood by an educated lay person. Essays should be fun and engaging and of a standard between New Scientist and the science pages of a quality broadsheet newspaper. For full eligibility criteria and further details, please click on the link below. The first application deadline is 14 September 2009.

Postgraduate Essay Prize

The Society seeks eminent endocrinologists to deliver medal lectures at the SfE BES 2011 meeting. Nominations should be submitted to the Society by 31 July 2009. Full details can be found at the link below.

Medal nominations

Clinical Excellence Awards are given to recognise and reward the exceptional contribution of NHS consultants, over and above that normally expected in a job, to the values and goals of the NHS and to patient care. The Society has successfully supported members' nominations in previous years, and we are pleased to offer this service again for the 2010 round. Please contact Abhi Vora at the Bristol office (abhi.vora@endocrinology.org) as soon as possible if you wish the Society to support your nomination. All applications for Society support must be submitted by Friday 11 September 2009 in order to start the support process for 2010. Further details at the links below.

Members in England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland

Details of vacancies and nomination forms can be found under the specific committees at the website below. The deadline for nominations is 31 July 2009.

Join a committee

This year's Clinical Update will take place at the Renaissance Manchester Hotel, Manchester on 2-4 November 2009. Registration for this meeting is now open at the link below with an early bird deadline of 1 October 2009. Case submission details and a preliminary programme are also available on the Clinical Update website.

Clinical Update 2009

For the first time, the Society has been able to make recordings of Medal Lectures available on the web. Members will be required to log-in to the members' area of the website (at the link below) to access the lectures. Members who do not have log-in credentials should obtain them by following the instructions at the 'lost password' link below.

Members' section

Lost password

This is a one and half day interactive symposium that has been specifically designed for specialty registrars and consultants with an interest in the practicalities of obesity management. The symposium will be based around small, practical workshops with some didactic lectures from leaders in the field, including Dr Sadaf Farooqi and Professor John Wilding (who are also the organisers), Dr Nick Finer, Dr Jonathan Pinkney, Dr Andrew Johnson. The symposium will be held at the Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge on 24-25 September 2009, and will cover topics such as:

1. Setting up and running a specialist obesity clinic, an inpatient obesity service and bariatric surgery.

2. History, examination and investigation of the severely obese patient (interactive with patients).

3. Motivational interviewing, dietary and medical approaches to treatment.

The course has been restricted to 40 delegates in order to aid informal interaction between the delegates themselves and between the delegates and members of the faculty. Registration for this meeting is now open at the link below.

Register here

The Society for Endocrinology offers a number of grants which members can apply for throughout the year. These include: clinical department visit grants, sponsored seminars and poster session grants, and conference travel grants. For details on how to apply for Society grants, please visit the website below. If you have any questions about Society grants, please email: grants@endocrinology.org.

Grants website

Do you sit on a Fellowship-awarding panel? Have you been successful in gaining a Fellowship? Would you be prepared to help others gain a Fellowship?

The Society is aware that research Fellowships can be an invaluable tool to enable talented young scientists build independent careers, and is keen to support members wishing to obtain Fellowships. To this end, the Society intends to establish a virtual ?Fellowship panel’ comprising of established researchers and successful Fellowship holders. The aim of the panel would be to provide advice (via the Bristol office) to members of the Society just starting down the Fellowship road. It is anticipated that an expert database will be created enabling the Society to match queries with the experts.

So, if you would like to be part of this scheme, please contact Rachel at the Society (rachel.evans@endocrinology.org), with a short resume of your Fellowship experiences. As soon as we have a suitable number of experts, we will advertise the advice service to the membership.

The Society for Endocrinology Undergraduate Achievement Awards have been established to encourage excellence in the study of endocrinology by undergraduate students. Departments are invited to submit applications to the Society for an award to outstanding undergraduates. The award will consist of a £300/yr grant to the department (for three years), and a certificate from the Society to the award winner.

Applications will only be considered if submitted by a paid up member of the Society for Endocrinology. Please note the Society will only accept applications submitted between the opening date of 18 June 2009 and closing date of 17 July 2009. Full eligibility criteria, an application form and a list of previous winners can be found at the website below.

SfE grants

The Society currently advertises a number of MSc courses on the web (please click on the link below for details). If you are currently aware of MSc courses that have strong elements of endocrinology within the syllabus, please contact Rachel at the Society (rachel.evans@endocrinology.org) in order for the Society to publicise them.

SfE careers website

We are pleased to announce a new on-line system for grant applications. Members can now complete grant applications using a secure on-line system. The system is initially being trialled for applications for the 'SFE Conferences and Overseas meetings’ grants for which the next deadline is 15 August 2009. Please click on the link below to apply for a travel grant on-line.

On-line grant applications

The Society offers a number of awards and prizes throughout the year. Prizes are offered at the SfE BES meeting and Clinical Cases meetings for oral and poster presentations, and undergraduates can apply for the Undergraduate Achievement Award and Undergraduate Essay Prize. A Postgraduate Essay Prize is also available on an annual basis. For further details of all these awards and prizes and information on how to apply, please visit the website below.

Prizes and awards website

DALLAS (MedPage Today) -- Weight-loss surgery allowed a majority of obese type 2 diabetes patients to stop or reduce medical therapy, but questions persisted about the durability of the effects, according to three studies reported here.

SAN FRANCISCO (MedPage Today) -- Type 1 diabetes patients who start on renin-angiotensin blockers early may slow development of retinopathy by up to 70%, although the drugs have little effect on nephropathy, a clinical trial revealed.

WASHINGTON (MedPage Today) -- In light of four recently published studies showing a link between insulin glargine (Lantus) and cancer, the FDA announced it is reviewing safety for the drug, but urged diabetic patients not to stop treatment without consulting a physician.

DALLAS (MedPage Today) -- Overweight patients with type 2 diabetes had significant short-term improvement in glycemic control when implanted with electronic nerve stimulators.

LITTLE FALLS, N.J. (MedPage Today) -- The metabolic syndrome appears to be related to an increased risk for breast cancer in postmenopausal women, a longitudinal study showed.

HOUSTON (MedPage Today) -- Studies examining a possible cancer link to insulin glargine (Lantus) produced mixed conclusions that drew quick, reassuring messages from diabetes authorities.

DALLAS (MedPage Today) -- Patients who undergo gastric bypass surgery often have undiagnosed glucose abnormalities that can lead to bad eating habits and regained weight, a small clinical study suggests.

SAN FRANCISCO (MedPage Today) -- Children with type 1 diabetes are now more likely to be overweight than their nondiabetic peers, a dramatic difference from their thin, gaunt presentation of the past.

WHEELING, W.Va. (MedPage Today) -- Clinicians should not bother with bone mineral density testing in postmenopausal women during the first three years of bisphosphonate therapy for osteoporosis, Australian researchers said.

PRINCETON, N.J. (MedPage Today) -- Men with lower urinary tract symptoms are more likely to suffer from metabolic syndrome, according to a new study that adds to growing evidence of a link between urinary problems and other chronic conditions.