“At PANLAR there is a considerable workload, but few workers”:

Antonio Ximenes.
PANLAR President 2010-12

The time has come to think big. It’s the least a body representing 21 scientific societies, that groups the majority of professionals dealing with rheumatic disease in the Americas, can do. It is a massive task, considering that in a continent with 900 million inhabitants, 10 to 15% of the population (90 to 110 million people) has an ongoing rheumatic condition, for which we have a valuable, although scarce, human resource of 11 thousand rheumatologists.

PANLAR has developed educational programs for its affiliates, such as the Pan-American Congress, which is nearing its twentieth edition, to be held in Mexico. Review courses and annual stimuli, such as the PANLAR Award for Young Researchers and the ACR/PANLAR internship program, have been recently developed and strengthened. PANLAR also honors its members with increasingly prestigious awards, such as the Masters of Pan-American Rheumatology Award.

Urgent tasks

There are, however, urgent tasks at hand. For example, our governments, and especially those in charge of public health decisions, require from the medical and scientific community clear and guiding opinions on current matters.

It is troubling that fundamental public health issues, such as the impact of biosimilars in medical practice, their benefits, disadvantages and warnings, have not been decisively dealt with in a continent that features progressive legislation on the subject (as in the cases of Ecuador and Colombia, just to name two).

There is no formal opinion of the institution grouping all prescribers. At the same time, patents on main products are expiring and over 300 molecules are being developed, which will literally overflow the market in the next few years.

We thereby propose the following activities to remedy this reality:

• To hold the Second Review Course in May 2017 around the subject “Biosimilars”. This course, in addition to reviewing legislation around the continent, will provide consensual Pan-American recommendations for the use of biosimilars in order for PANLAR to have a clear point of view, well adjusted to our realities, to offer its members, patients and regional governments.

• To hold the First Regional PANLAR Course, focused on specific topics of interest for the 4 regional divisions or for those with common interests. This meeting, to be held in Central America and which will be addressed to rheumatologists and non-rheumatologists, shall yield the PANLAR recommendations for arthritis and rheumatic complications caused by the chikungunya and zika viruses, which have affected large groups in the Americas. Latin American rheumatologists from areas affected by these viruses are probably the world’s most experienced practitioners. Physicians assisting patients daily will surely value any advice provided by PANLAR on this matter.

Changes necessary to the PANLAR structure

To fulfill the above, we have introduced specific changes.

According to our Brazilian former president, Antonio Ximenes, there is a “considerable workload, but few workers”, a quote which I have always agreed with. To address this issue we have introduced changes focusing on strengthening PANLAR’s management structure, which has been under the direction of our esteemed Lic. Rosa Sheen during the past few years, and which nonetheless is in need of restructuring in view of PANLAR’s growth and projection.

A professional recruitment process approved by the new executive committee led to setting forth the terms of reference and profile expected for the executive secretary and events organizer positions. Four international firms applied to these positions and, additionally, members of the management board personally interviewed them.

The selected firms were:

• Congrex, headed by Cinthya Uzcátegui and Javier Montilla, for the position of executive secretary. Congrex, the firm behind the successful XIX Pan-American Conference held in Panama, put forward an integral services proposal focusing on improving PANLAR’s office support through modern communication tools, in order to have a reliable member directory. This is a task which otherwise requires your full support. Likewise, its proposal addresses the need to strengthen PANLAR’s membership through modern payment methods, as well as sound financial and accounting practices based on professional budget implementation and regular monitoring.

• For the events organizer position, the winning firm was Kenes. Kenes is an internationally renowned firm leading in its area of services. The know-how and experience of the Kenes team associated to the new PANLAR structure will allow professionally organizing the Second PANLAR Rheumatology Review Course in May 2017 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the First Regional PANLAR-ACCAR Symposium in the second semester of 2017 in San José, Costa Rica, and the XXI Pan-American Rheumatology Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

These agreements aids us in being synchronized with global rheumatology societies in order to compete on an equal footing and aspire to holding, beyond doubt, the best continued education events for practitioners in our geographical area. It is in this way that we plan to fulfill the events set out in this note.

PANLAR’s new organizational and management structure enables us to retort to our beloved former president Antonio Ximenes and to the Pan-American rheumatology community that PANLAR will now have a considerable workload, but also many workers. The time has come to think big.

Carlo V Caballero Uribe MD , Phd (c)
President 2016-18
May 2016