December 2019

Newsletter

Newsletter Editor M. Caroline Vos
Logo based on painting by Omar Biscotti

Season’s Greetings!
Christmas Message fromthe ISPOG President
I feel highly privileged to bewriting my maiden Christmas
message as President of
ISPOG in this issue of theISPOG newsletter. In the aftermath of a successful
ISPOG Congress, the officers of the society are inhigh spirits, and as we go into a landmark year weare afforded the opportunity both to look backand take stock and to look forward withenthusiasm. Going into 2020, we should haveclarity of vision in respect of ISPOG and theadvancement of the biopsychosocial model ofhealth care delivery. In other words, we must have
20/20 vision for ISPOG!
In the next three years ISPOG activities will befocused mainly in the domains of advocacy,
education and research. May I recommend thatmember societies should key into these areas ofactivity and keep other member societies abreastof developments in this area through the mediumof this newsletter, the ISPOG website and thewebsites of member societies.
The world is progressing at a fast pace, newconcepts taking a relatively shorter time to gain afoothold. This is partly due to the digital revolution.
We must take advantage of this to disseminate
our core message on the importance ofintegrating biological, social and psychologicalfactors in the planning, delivery and monitoring ofhealthcare. And this integration should beemphasised in the basic and continuing
education of health professionals.
May I encourage members, individually and as agroup, to continue to champion this cause withfervour.
I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy NewYear.
Leroy C Edozien

Past President’s Report
This October at the occasion of
our 19th ISPOG congress in The
Hague, my term of presidency
came to its end. During the past
three years, ISPOG could
strengthen the mutualcollaboration with other international societies
with which we share common interests, such as
the European Board and College of Obstetrics
and Gynaecology (EBCOG), the International
Association for Women’s Mental Health (IAWMH)
and the International Marcé Society for Perinatal
Mental Health. To further education was one of
my declared aims during my presidency. Thanks
to Jonathan Schaffir, our member at large foreducation, we are some steps further inpromoting E-learning via our ISPOG website,whereas my contribution consisted predominantly
in organising and holding interactive “hands-on”
workshops covering psychosocial topics at various
conferences. To spread our messages and toreach all health professionals interested in
psychosocial aspects in ObGyn social media
presence is crucial nowadays. ISPOG has
launched a social media drive before and during
our congress in The Hague with the idea thatthese networks, once established will also bebeneficial in the future. For more information
regarding our activities between 2016 and 2019 I
refer you to my comprehensive president’s report,
which will be sent out to your national contact
person together with the minutes of our general
assembly.
I look back on three years full of inspiringexchange, unforgettable encounters and theexperience of being supported by very reliable
and supportive friends. This was especially
important as we were repeatedly confronted withchallenging tasks. I would like to express my deep

gratitude to the ISPOG Board members, CarlosDamonte, Heather Rowe, Vivian PramataroffHamburger and Leroy Edozien. Furthermore, Iwould like to thank the members at large and allother ExCo members for their engagement for
ISPOG, which affords energy and time, but bringsback inspiration, satisfaction, even sometimes funand eventually prevents us from professional
burnout!
I handed over my Presidency to Leroy Edozien. I
wish him, as well as the other re-elected or newofficers, a successful three years’ term and I am
happy to have the opportunity to keep on
supporting the board in particular and ISPOG ingeneral in my new position as immediate pastpresident. Thanks to all of you for your confidence,
your support and your friendship.

Treasurers Report
ISPOG has a healthy financial situation. In 2018,
membership fees of 12.844 euro were collected.
Expenses were 4.860,56 euro. 4-5 countries stillneed to pay their membership for 2018-2019. Total
assets end of 2018 are 54.927,57 euro.

Introduction New Officers
Mechthild Neises, MSc MD PhD, our newpresident-elect has a longstanding career inpsychosomatic obstetrics and gynaecology. She
has been active both in science and in theprofessional German organisations in
psychosomatic obstetrics and gynaecology andespecially in psycho-oncology, She currently holds
practice in Aachen, Germany. She is the author ofmany publications, both in the field of obstetrics
and gynaecology and especially in
psychotherapy and psychosomatics.
M. Caroline Vos, MD PhD, new secretary-general,
is a gynaecologist and epidemiologist fromTilburg, the Netherlands, with an interest in
gynaecologic oncology and pelvic surgery. She
has been active in the Dutch POG working party
for many years and is especially interested ineducation through the Academy of
Psychosomatics in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Her research is on cancer survivorship, information
provision and provision of care. She also works incare for women after FGM.

At the handover October 10, 2019 in the Hague,
the Netherlands, from left to right: Carlos Damonte
Khoury, Mechthild Neises, Vivian PramataroffHamburger, Leroy Edozien, Sibil Tschudin, Heather
Rowe, M.Caroline Vos

Farewell and Acknowledgment
As the president of ISPOG during the last 3 years’
term and in the name of the Board and of all
ISPOG members I want to express my gratitude tothe three people, who had accomplished theirterms and / or resigned from their posts at theoccasion of the general assembly this year in The
Hague, for their commitment and engagementfor our society. These are Carlos Damonte Khouri,
Heather Rowe and Linda McGowan.
Carlos Damonte Khoury
Dr Carlos Damonte Khouri, Spain, was an ISPOG
officer for twelve years. He started as Secretary
General under Klaas Wijma’s presidency, thenbecame President-elect and was our President,
when I entered the board. As an extremely skilled
networker he tirelessly engaged himself in gaining
new member societies not only in the Spanish
speaking part of the world, but worldwide. In hisspeeches and talks, he always proved farsightedness and a deep sense of humour. Primarily
he is a dedicated proponent of the bio-psychosocial perspective in ObGyn, but this is not his onlypassion. Some of us know him also as an ardent
flamenco singer. For all of us he is a precious andloyal colleague and for many of us he became agood friend. We are very grateful to him for all hedid for ISPOG.

Heather RoweDr Heather Rowe PhD BSc, Australia, was ourSecretary General for six years. As the past
President of the Australian SPOG and as a SeniorResearch Fellow focussing on perinatal mental
health promotion and the management of fertility
at Monash University in Melbourne, she broughtwith her the best qualifications for this position. In
fact, it took not much time to realise how
extremely lucky we were to have her in our board.
With Heather, I had someone at my side, whoalways kept the overview, asked the rightquestions and gave precious input and wise
advice at the right moment. Thanks to her and theEvent Manager Bianca Scarlett we could profit
from a very well organized and efficient ISPOG
Secretariat. However, Heather is not only a very
thoughtful, reliable and considerate person; she isalso an excellent researcher, speaker andmoderator. During our numerous “ISPOG missions”
I had the chance to profit from Heather’s
professional skills, but we also discovered ourvarious common non-medical interests andbecame very good friends. Our close ties were
never challenged by the fact that Heather lives atthe other end of the world and will not becompromised by the end of her term as a board
member. We all are very grateful to Heather forwhat she did for ISPOG.
Linda McGowan
Prof Linda McGowan, Great Britain, was co-editorin-chief of our Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetricsand Gynecology (JPOG) from 2017 and hasannounced her retirement as Editor effective 30
September 2019. She currently has a Leadership
Chair in Applied Health Research and is Directorof Research and Innovation at the School of
Healthcare of the University of Leeds. Within theusual pair of editors, Linda McGowan represented
the psychology discipline. Under her joint
editorship with Prof Julie Quinlivan, Australia, thereputation of the journal was further strengthened,
represented by a steadily increasing impact factor
to 2.327 in 2018. We are very grateful to Julie
McGowan not only for her engagement for ourjournal to date, but also that she agreed toremain until a replacement is found and will
support the incoming editor during the transition.
Sibil Tschudin

ISPOG Research Agenda from ISPOG 2019,
the Hague, the Netherlands
Thanks to the initiative of the JPOG editors-in-chiefa session dedicated to the ISPOG research
agenda could be held for the first time at our 2019ISPOG congress. Researchers were invited tosubmit research proposals. These were presented
at the session and evaluated. Bringing together allthese experts led to interesting discussions. We arevery grateful to Julie Quinlivan for her tirelessengagement, which led to the publication of an
editorial in the JPOG with a summary of each of
the six presented proposals (see link below). If
anyone wants to contribute to these projects,
please contact the coordinating person below.
Topic

Global co-ordinator

Collaborative
Heather Rowe Email:management of heather.rowe@monash.eduendometriosis
Male infertility
emotional andpsychologicalsupport

Tewes Wischmann Email:Tewes.Wischmann@med.uniheidelberg.de

Care provision
following birthtraumaGill Thomson Email:GThomson@uclan.ac.uk

Denial of
pregnancy

Antje Bittner Email:antje.bittner@ukdd.de

Fertility aftercancerKiyoshi Takamatsu Email:ktakamatsu@tdc.ac.jp

Reducing
Yael Benyamini Email:incongruous
benyael@tauex.tau.ac.il
expectations forchildbirth
Please find the full article at:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0
167482X.2020.1695872#.Xepgjv045JI.twitte

Application for new Editor-in-chief of the Journalof Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology
now open:https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/call-forapplications-for-the-post-of-editor-inchief/#?utm_source=CPB&utm_medium=cms&ut
m_campaign=JOK12298

Member Contact Details – Please Check Your Entry!
We are endeavouring to keep your contact details correct and up-to-date.
Please visit the ISPOG website and check the contact details of your national society. If they are not correct,
please forward the correct details to admin@ispog.org
AgendaNASPOG, St. Louis, Missouri April 17-19, 2020 via https://naspog.wildapricot.org/2020
EBCOG, Bergen, Norway, May 14-16, 2020 via https://www.ebcog2020.org
During EBCOG 2020 the next ExCo meeting will be held on Friday May 16th in the afternoon. Details will be
provided as soon as possible.
ISPOG wishes you, and your families and colleagues a peaceful and safe holiday season.
M.Caroline Vos
Secretary General on behalf of the ISPOG BoardTwitterFacebookLinkedIn@ISPOG_org