Ibrahim Yıldırım, our trustee member Dr. GursuGuler and the rest of the Turkish Society’s Boardof Directors, for their hospitality and their interestProf. Marita Eisenmann-Klein (<strong>IPRAS</strong> President) from the openingCeremony on of the 7th Congress of the Balkan Associationto make more dynamic efforts towards spreadingscientific knowledge worldwide. Congratulationsand many thanks also to the Organizational Office,Figur, and more specifically to Mrs. Nur Olcer andMrs. Ebru Ercan for their excellent efforts andtheir warm hospitality.Literally speaking, straight after Turkey, we traveledto the most sympathetic Sarajevo in Bosnia, in orderto attend the 7 th Congress of the Balkan Associationof Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery(September 14 th – September 17 th ) . This was a veryinteresting congress which attracted participantsfrom the Balkan Area and more specifically, fromBosnia, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria,FYROM, Albania, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia. The<strong>IPRAS</strong> President, Prof. Marita Eisenmann-Kleinattended the congress for 2 days and so did theExecutive Director, Mr. Zacharias Kaplanidis. The<strong>IPRAS</strong> Booth was also there during the congress andwas staffed by Mr. Nicholas Yiacoumettis and Mr.George Koliopoulos. The Executive Director hadthe opportunity to speak directly to the participantsof the congress and invited the Balkan plasticsurgeons to come closer to <strong>IPRAS</strong> and to activelyparticipate in the confederation’s activities.The President of the Congress, Dr. Reuf Karabegwas undoubtedly the “soul” of the organization, andwas promised through our President, Dr. MaritaEisenmann-Klein, that <strong>IPRAS</strong> would help andsupport the Bosnian Association as well as theBalkan Association of Plastic, Reconstructive andAesthetic Surgery, in any possible way.As far as we are aware, the next BAPRAS congresswill take place in Serbia, and will be chaired by ouroutstanding member, Dr. Miodrag Colic, to whomwe wish every success and promise that <strong>IPRAS</strong>will be by his side in order to help the BalkanAssociation grow even stronger.During the 7 th BAPRAS, Prof. Marita Eisenmann-Klein and Mr. Zacharias Kaplanidis, hadindividual meetings with the Presidents of theBalkan Associations and more specifically, with Dr.Marko Margaritoni from Croatia, Dr. DimiterEvstatiev from Bulgaria, Dr. Reuf Karabeg fromBosnia and Dr. Marijan Novakovic from Serbia.From the left: Priv. Doz. Dr. Klaus Exner, Past President of TheGerman Society of Plastic Surgeons, Prof.h.c. Marita Eisenmann-Klein <strong>IPRAS</strong> President, Prof. Peter Vogt, President German Societyof Plastic Surgeons, Prof. Peter Kompatscher, Past PresidentAustrian Society of Plastic Surgery<strong>IPRAS</strong> booth in SarajevoWe would like to thank Dr. Reuf Karabeg and hiswife Amela, for their especially warm hospitality toour President, Prof. Marita Eisenmann-Klein andthe entire team of the <strong>IPRAS</strong> Management Office.Finally, the activities of the last 3 months endedin late September, with the <strong>IPRAS</strong> participationat the Joint Congress of the Austrian and theGerman Societies of Plastic, Reconstructive and12 <strong>IPRAS</strong> Journal www.ipras.org Issue 6
Aesthetic Surgeons (September 29 th – October 1 st )in Innsbruck, Austria. The German and AustrianSocieties offered the space for the <strong>IPRAS</strong> booth tooperate throughout this very important congress.Furthermore, the high scientific level of the congressattracted and contributed more than 600 participantsand 30 exhibitors, one of which was our President,Prof. Marita Eisenmann-Klein with the President of the AustrianSociety of Plastic Surgeons Dr Helmut Hoflehner.Prof. Marita Eisenmann-Klein, who was part ofthe scientific programme. The congress was alsoattended by Mrs. Maria Petsa and Mr. GerasimosKouloumpis, who staffed the <strong>IPRAS</strong> Booth.We would like to thank the Presidents of theGerman Association, Dr. Peter Vogt and theAustrian Association, Dr. Helmut Hoflehner fortheir hospitality and their courtesy towards our<strong>IPRAS</strong> President and the <strong>IPRAS</strong> ManagementOffice team.We would also like to add that many participantsvisited the <strong>IPRAS</strong> booth and were particularlyinterested in the newly founded ISPRES(International Society for Plastic, RegenerativeSurgery), the <strong>IPRAS</strong> Sub-committees and all futureevents. Moreover, many obtained the <strong>IPRAS</strong>Certificate and as usual in every congress the <strong>IPRAS</strong>pin was also given. Hopefully, in the next edition ofthe <strong>IPRAS</strong> Journal, we will have the opportunity topresent some of the notable scientific papers andabstracts that were analyzed during this congress.With this mission to Austria, we conclude the<strong>IPRAS</strong> Management Office’s main activitiesfor the last 3 months which covered North-EastEurope and Central Europe. We continue with twoother Continents. Firstly, Asia and the significantcongress of China (October 27 th - October 30 th )and secondly, South America with the Congress ofthe Brazilian Association in Goiana (November11 th – November 15 th ).Thank you all and we wish you the best of healthand strength for this season which is filled withdifficulties and challenges.Zacharias Kaplanidis<strong>IPRAS</strong> Executive Director<strong>IPRAS</strong> Management OfficeZITA CongressIssue 6 www.ipras.org <strong>IPRAS</strong> Journal 13