Welcome Letter from the Panlar President

Carlo Vinicio Caballero
PANLAR President 

Dear members of the industry,

The Pan-American Congresses are the most important gathering of Pan-American Rheumatology that in this will celebrate their 20th edition in Buenos Aires Argentina in April 2018. This gathering is expected to be very special for several reasons. We will return to Argentina after 21 years since the last Congress was held in this region at a very special moment for PANLAR, which is close to becoming 75 years old.

One of its children, founder of the Argentine Society for Rheumatology (ASR), Dr Aníbal Ruiz Moreno, submitted to the International League (ILAR) authorities the formal idea of a Regional League including the countries of the American continent.

“Rheumatologists form a fraternity, we are brothers joined by science and heart” Ruiz Moreno assured. After two years of discussions and study, the League was approved and in 1944 PANLAR was born, the first and oldest of the Regional Leagues of ILAR that was followed subsequently by EULAR in 1947, APLAR in 1963 and AFLAR in 1990.

Today we see that the spirit of the League remains close to the view of the founders, but with a renewed focus and a greater identification with this dream. It is still important to join the Americas to do something in Rheumatology.

PANLAR events take place with their own style and personality and, most importantly, they are becoming the place par excellence where all members of the continent can report their experiences and join collaborations to thus set standards through recommendations, guides and studies, in particular collaborative, for the geographical region that we serve.

We have strengthened innovation as the spinal cord of our activities and events to be full of fresh, original thoughts about how to approach problems and the advances in Rheumatology in the Region.

With its own identity, group participation and innovation, we advance in building a PANLAR which is strengthened with the commitment of all those that are part of this community: Researchers, study groups, healthcare rheumatologists and all those interested in the speciality and of course the main reason for our activity as physicians: the patients, as we will have jointly and for the first time a Pan-American congress of patients.

With the experience and tradition of PANLAR, while still young and full of ideas and formats to make them reality, we are once again waiting for you in the land where everything once began. WE ARE ALL PANLAR!

We are waiting for you!

Welcome Letter from the SAR President

Enrique R. Soriano
President of the Argentine Society for Rheumatology
President-Elect of PANLAR

Dear Friends:

I have the pleasure to add to the words of invitation of our president of the 20th PANLAR Congress 2018.

PANLAR at its strategic approach meeting in 2017 has set as objectives to be the main supplier of education in Rheumatology and to draw up guidelines and recommendations in Latin America. This 20th Pan-American Congress is an essential step in this path.

During these 75 years PANLAR has found its purpose, its methods and its place in worldwide Rheumatology. It is our duty to strengthen and to further these achievements.

With your participation this PANLAR Congress will be a major scientific and social event. Gathering, talking and creating ties is one of the most important factors for which face-to-face Congresses, I believe, cannot be replaced by virtual events. The aim of PANLAR is to promote these moments of gathering.

The Argentine Society for Rheumatology (ASR) is proud and very happy to be the host of this very important event. The ASR and the 21 Societies and/or Associations member of PANLAR are strong, unique links of the organisation. The ASR considers supporting PANLAR as one of its strengths and a main commitment to improve Rheumatology and therefore the quality of life of rheumatic patients in the region.

Under the slogan: “For a PANLAR that, settled in the present, jumps into the future”, the 20th PANLAR Congress places innovation, participation and membership as its main cornerstones.

We wish and we are sure to achieve, with your help, that each of you find in PANLAR and in its Congress a place, your place, for scientific and human growth.

We are waiting for you, so that we can all continue to build this renewed PANLAR!

Welcome Letter from the President of the Congress

Bernardo A. Pons-Estel
President of PANLAR Congress 2018

Dear Friend:

This letter is not a formal invitation. If you read it to the end you will understand!

We do not want to invite you by telling you that this will be “The Best PANLAR Congress of history”, or that “Buenos Aires is the best city in the world”.

It is our interest to invite you to be a player in this process of change, a challenge that has been taking place for several years and that involves being a cornerstone and a platform, creativity and innovation, belonging and commitment, in other words “Our thing”. We know that we compete with others that are very strong, but we know we can! And we dream to convince you to be more and better.

We do not want that the PANLAR 2018 Congress to be only that, “Another Congress”, we want it to be the place where we can show the transformation process that we generate day by day. We want it to be your place for science and education for our large country.

We summon you to walk together, because “WE ARE ALL PANLAR” is not an empty slogan, but a sense of heritage, a commitment to the future, a link between roots and branches.

Come to the PANLAR 2018 Congress to take part in a high-rank scientific event, to present your studies, share your ideas and projects and create the networks that allow us to be united and continue to grow.

We are waiting for you at PANLAR Congress 2018, in Buenos Aires, so that you see that what we say are not only words, and to involve you, as far as you can, to generate sustainable changes.

It is a dream of greatness that we want to convey to you. Join the challenge, because “TOGETHER WE CAN”

Kind regards.