The President's Letter

In the fall I wrote to you about plans for a major strategic planning session and subsequently asked for your comments and ideas about the ISTM, its priorities and potential new directions. Thank you all for the candid and thoughtful perspectives you provided in your e-mail responses to me. Your input was critical to our thinking on how to best assure that the ISTM continues to grow and develop and to reach its full potential as the principal international society of travel medicine practitioners.

The strategic planning meeting was held in December 2004, attended by the current and prior ISTM leadership and by other representatives of the ISTM membership. As I mentioned in my previous letter to you, the meeting was facilitated by two former partners of Booz-Allen Hamilton with extensive experience serving global companies in addressing their critical strategic and organizational issues. The purpose of this letter is to report back to you on the outcomes of this meeting, the changes in organization and governance decided at the meeting, and the new initiatives to be launched as a result of the meeting.

All of the leadership and most of the members whose responses we received believed that the society has been successful in advancing its core purpose and goals. All of the leadership agreed that the purpose and goals of the society should not be changed. However, we all believe that the ISTM has greater potential, particularly in expanding its membership, in its role as an international expert body, in its educational agenda, and in strengthening its appeal outside of pre-travel medicine. As a result of the meeting, the ISTM leadership will implement new organization and governance practices to be consistent with a society of the ISTM's size and importance and to more effectively meet its goals.

We believe that the changes in organization and governance will allow the society to be more effective, to be more transparent to our membership, and to better include the efforts of the membership in achieving our goals through a more effective committee structure and process.

The organization and governance changes include the following:

• The Executive Board will meet by telephone every three months in order to conduct ISTM business (rather than just once a year);
• A formal budgeting process has been put in place as a vehicle for critical funding decisions and the prioritization of ISTM expenditures;
• A finance committee has been formed and chartered to oversee the prudent financial management of ISTM resources;
• A development committee has been formed and chartered with coordinating and facilitating the funding of ISTM initiatives;
• In the future the Secretary/Treasurer will become a position elected by the membership (rather than a position appointed by the board as is currently the case);
• A Conflict of Interest Policy will be drafted and signed by all of the ISTM leadership and committee chairs; and
• A working group has been chartered to examine the potential to better utilize professional staff to augment the efforts of ISTM's volunteer resources.

The committee process and structure has been changed to be more effective and to more effectively leverage the efforts of committee participation from the membership, as follows:

• Each committee will have a charter and annual goals (to be posted on the ISTM website);
• Committees will meet at least two times a year (in any method practical);
• Funding for committee activities will be through the annual budgeting process;
• ISTM members will be solicited for committee participation at least once every two years;
• Appropriate space will be provided at conferences to conduct committee business;
• The electronic communications committee has been disbanded and its role subsumed by the publications committee; and
• The membership committee has been reformed and chartered.

We have launched a number of targeted initiatives with concrete action plans in order to better achieve the ISTM's objectives in the areas of greatest unrealized potential. These initiatives include the following:

• As the leadership believes that there is unrealized potential for membership growth especially outside of North America, the ISTM will renew its efforts to continue to grow the membership and therefore its impact within the international travel medicine professional community;
• We will endeavor to structure relationships with national societies to further our goals;
• New categories of membership are being examined to target members of national societies as well as practitioners in developing countries;
• A membership committee has been formed to drive the ISTM's efforts in this area;
• The Host Country Committee has been charged with outreach to potential new members in developing countries;
• The Migrant and Refugee Health Committee has been charged with growing membership within that professional community;
• An action plan has been developed to enhance the ISTM's recognition as an international expert body in travel medicine;
• The ISTM will begin issuing consensus statements (expert guidelines) on issues of importance to travel medicine and the publications committee will oversee this effort (our goal is to issue two expert guidelines per year); and
• In addition, the ISTM will seek to have representation within relevant global health bodies - as an initial step we will seek observer status at the World Health Organization.

An action plan has been developed to further the achievement of the ISTM's educational agenda:

• The education committee has been charged with developing and managing the educational activities of the ISTM;
• The goals of the education committee over the coming year will be to prepare a monograph on how start a travel clinic, make educational slide sets available on topics of importance to travel medicine practitioners, develop a speakers bureau identifying expert lecturers, and explore distance learning as a vehicle to create additional educational opportunities; and
• The exam committee will continue to manage the provision of the exam and will consider the possibility of exam preparation courses.

Finally the leadership of the ISTM has recognized that Migrant and Refugee Health is a critical area of strategic investment for the society. However we believe that our approach to this professional community needs to change. We have asked the Migrant and Refugee Health Committee to develop an action plan to achieve the following objectives:

• Develop and propose initiatives to increase ISTM membership within the Migrant and Refugee Health professional community;
• Develop and propose specific programs and initiatives to serve the Migrant and Refugee Health Community within the ISTM; and
• Present and discuss this program at the next quarterly meeting of the ISTM Executive Board.

As you can see, we have developed an ambitious agenda, an agenda which I believe will ensure that the ISTM reaches its full potential in advancing the science and practice of travel medicine. We are excited about the future prospects of the ISTM and by the program we have developed to bring us into the future. You should expect that the changes we have made will be reflected in future communications to you, at the next CISTM, and in the organization and activities of our committees. Some of the changes that we have endorsed will require changes to our bylaws and you will be asked to contribute your support by voting for these bylaw changes.

Ultimately, the success of the ISTM and its contribution to the health of travelers will depend on you. I will continue to actively seek your participation in the efforts of the Society as we endeavor to meet our goals. I look forward to seeing all of you in Lisbon and I appreciate your continued engagement and passion in building an even more successful ISTM.

Brad Connor