Dear Members of the EHS, dear Colleagues,

Following the excellent 11^th EHS Congress 2014 in Stockholm, I would like to thank the past president, Gösta Ullmark, for all the hard work he did during his presidency and the great effort he put into the congress for the European Hip Society. He did a marvellous job with a scientific program in Stockholm that fulfilled the highest scientific standards.

Now it is my turn to serve the EHS as president and I am looking forward to developing our society – not only with the ExCom members in our various committees, but also with each and every member – to become one of the most outstanding specialty societies in Europe.

As the new president, my first wish is to increase our number of members. Up to now we only had 20 young members. So we voted in Stockholm for a change in the conditions for becoming a member. It is easier now for young members to become part of our group of friends very much interested in all diseases around the hip. A young member must be in training as an orthopaedic or trauma surgeon, his/her department chief/head must send us a letter confirming his/her resident training and then s/he needs two full members of the EHS to guarantee eligibility. Leader members of the ExCom are happy to check the qualifications of our young members and sign for them and can be the sponsors if they don´t have any members in their neighborhood.

What can we offer?

You get online-access to our very good journal “Hip International”, you enjoy reduced registration fees for our meetings, especially for our biannual congress, workshops, seminars and courses. You have access to our online platform, which is constantly being developed, and you get a free online EHS-newsletter.

So as you can see, we have plenty to offer young members, not to mention the reduced fee of 50 Euros per year – half what full members pay. Payment is easy, with credit card or SEPA (Single European Payment Area) – you will find the form here on our website.

The EHS was very active in Prague with EFORT and held a half-day specialty meeting on hip problems. Together with EFORT and EKKA we did a full-day hip and knee program in two parallel rooms to give all EFORT’s members a chance to learn about hip and knee problems.

For 2016, I am preparing the 12^th EHS Congress in Munich, 6-9th September [www.ehs-congresses.org]. Please, get involved! Help us to find the topics you want to hear about, and we will address them. There will be fora for discussions and ideas on the webpage. We wish to learn from your ideas. You may see all the possibilities we will have at the meeting on our dedicated congress website.

Of course we will have prizes for these meetings, for especially young researchers on the best oral presentations and the best poster presentations. And we will have electronic posters – if your poster is accepted, you can present it with 5 slides in 4 minutes with 1 minute for 1 question in a special poster session.

The field of hip is huge. From pediatric orthopaedics, ultrasound and children, to the orthogeriatrics work with all the problems around the hip. I also think this is a beautiful field for young researchers and young residents wanting to specialize in the hip, and the best way to do this is to join our society.

Please come along to the 2016 EHS congress and if you are not a member, become a full member or a young member of our society so that, altogether, we can improve what can be done around the hip in our respective nations.

We now have 31 membership nations, we have excellent National Delegates from each and every country. We have science, education, history and website committees. If you are active and qualified, we invite you to work with us in these committees or in organizing our meetings, workshops, courses and congresses.

If your contact details change, you can use the member’s log in area on our website and update your personal data and correspondence information to ensure proper receipt of your “Hip International” journal or internet access. This area is password restricted and includes the general assembly minutes and many other details.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Samantha Stokes (samstokesehs@gmail.com), who is doing a great job as a managing secretary. Our website technology will be constantly optimized. If you have any queries regarding this, please contact Prof Tsiridis, the Secretary General (tsiridisehs@gmail.com).

We have a strong relationship with EFORT, as well as all our member societies, where you can of course also be a member and work locally in your country.

Help us to develop this important society. Let´s make progress with EHS and all the problems that our patients suffer from and I hope to meet you in our congresses, courses and workshops soon.

Yours sincerely,