The 1st Working Group Meeting
     October 30-31, 2001 Bangkok, Thailand         

The 1st Working Group Meeting Minutes

(Morning Session: Wednesday October 31: 9:00/AM)

Were present as members: Pr Myung Chul Lee ( Chairman, ARCCNM ), Dr Mizanul Hassan ,
Dr Vikram Lele, Dr Jerry Obaldo, Dr Anchali Krisanachinda, Dr Soemewo Soebowo,
Dr Cheuk Man Tong ( standing for Dr Jia-He Tian ), Dr Sang Moo Lim, Dr Shuji Tanada
( standing for Dr Kenichi Nakajima ).
Observer :
Dr Vacharee Buachom ( President of Thailand Society of Nuclear Medicine )
Dr Makumkrong Poshyachinda ( King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital )
Dr Jean Carlo Marchio ( Schering CIS BIO )
Ms Soon Yong Lee ( Secretariat )

Dr Lee started the meeting at 9: 00 precisely, by asking participants if it was OK to have the minutes drafted by Dr Marchio, who was approved unanimously.

Dr Lee first clarified the objective of the meeting and the different roles to be played by Executive Board and Working Group. Constitution was established by Executive Board, detailed actions have to be decided by Working Group.
Executive Board is for political actions. Working Group is for practical actions.
Then Pr Lee as Chairman, after asking to all if they had any objection to the proposed agenda and if amendments had to be made, proceeded with the meeting's Agenda.

1) The 1st Annual General Meeting in Dalian, China (June 4th)
Pr Lee mentioned that date could not be changed because of CJK Conference on June 2-3. And asked participants. (Due to China's situation, 1st Annual General Meeting was finally decided to be held on June 1 before CJK Conference after agreement of China, Japan, Korea's Delegate Meetings)

About Point A of the agenda: difference with CJK Conference.

Dr Lee explained that as support was needed mainly from Japan, Korea, China, it was decided to link ARCCNM annual meeting with CJK.
Dr Obaldo asked if the annual meeting should always be in June.

Dr Lee answered that in odd years (no CJK Conference) date could be changed and that in principle it should be held in a developing country.
Dr Soebowo, asked if participant from non-CJK would be accepted at CJK.
Dr Lee answered it will be OK without charge.
Dr Tong asked if it will be Scientific or just a gathering.
Dr Hasan proposed to rename it Annual meeting and scientific conference.
Pr Lee mentioned it couldn't be changed as already decided by constitution.
Dr Tanada explained requirement from each country for CJK conference: 2 special lectures and 20 papers. No education program is forecasted.

Points B; C; D was discussed together.
Dr Hasan asked, who can submit a paper and what would be the support from ARCCNM.
Dr Lee said he expected around 50 from developing countries, the total number of participant could be 110.
Dr Obaldo asked to differentiate with CJK with lectures that are more basic, and it was decided.
Dr Lim asked timetable to be set as soon as possible. Dr Hasan concurred and said it may be difficult to present 100 papers in one day. It was commonly agreed that some could be posters.
Dr Hasan proposed to be pragmatic and ask for papers first.
As time was short and discussion was going to take time, it was decided that meeting will consist of Presentations, posters, and continuing education.
Dr Lee proposed to have an evaluation committee and for the working group to be the organizing committee.
Dr Hasan proposed for convenience to have a local Korean organizing committee.
Pr Lee proposed to send papers to task force leaders depending field then organizing committee will decide.
Dr Krisanachinda proposed a pre screening by each national society.
Consensus was for three steps evaluation: local /task force/working group.
Deadline for submission was set to be end of February 2002.
As for support, Dr Lee explained that he expected Budget to be 50000 US $, which will allow to support completely participants from developing countries.
As for program association with executive board and working group, Dr Lim asked a timetable to be decided.
It was decided that Dr Lim would be in charge of coordination.

2) Relation with international organizations,

Dr Lee first explained concerns expressed by members about competition with AOFNMB at first executive board.
Dr Lee mentioned about the possibility to make ARCCNM a group under the umbrella of AOFNMB.
Dr Lee mentioned about the lack of activity of AOFNMB. Dr Obaldo concurred and mentioned that AOFNMB lacked programs. Dr Lele considered that this might negate the purpose of ARCCNM.
Dr Tong favored collaboration with AOFNMB, not being under its umbrella. Dr Hasan, proposed to apply and become a fully recognized body.
Dr Tong proposed a "wait and see attitude''.
In front of all these opinions, Dr Lee mentioned that he would discuss it with Dr Liu.
Dr Lim proposed to have a session about it at next AOFNMB congress in 2004.
Moving to relations with IAEA; Dr Lee commented on letters exchange between himself and IAEA executives.
As a conclusion and in front of the relative careful attitude of IAEA, Dr Lee mentioned that ARCCNM would move even without help of IAEA.
Dr Lee also asked each working group member to push through his or her national federation on IAEA. Dr Soemewo asked about RCA.
Dr Tong asked who is Dr Padhy, Dr Aleta, Dr Razley.
Dr Lee explained IAEA working and position of responsible Persons.
Dr Lele proposed to make Dr Padhy a special advisor to ARCCNM.
Dr Obaldo proposed to move ahead and that IAEA support will come later, their lead-time to implement programs being very long.
Dr Tong proposed to draft a letter to be signed by all national societies' presidents.
Dr Lee mentioned that individual letters might be OK too.
Dr Lim mentioned that point 3 in Pr Lee's letter might have made IAEA nervous.
Dr Hasan mentioned that the best route to act on IAEA is through governments.
Dr Lim proposed to ask each government to relay ARCCNM proposal to IAEA.
As a conclusion, it was decided that Dr Lee would write to each national society president to ask for support toward IAEA.

(Afternoon Session: Wednesday October 31: 14:00/PM)

3) Asian School of Nuclear Medicine

Dr Lim presented the EANM program. Dr Lee extended precision on European school and expressed his idea on difference with what ASNM should be.
Dr Lim asked if PET technology would be done by ASNM.
Dr Lele asked if a school is necessary looking at scope of ESNM.
Dr Lele instead proposed to have lecturers to visit developing countries for intensive training.
Dr Hasan mentioned it should be for beginners.
Dr Lim proposed seminars, as ARCNNM is not ready for a school according to him.
There was then discussion on where to establish school and if a place was necessary.
Dr Krisanachinda offered Thailand and Chulalonkorn University as location.
Dr Lee proposed that the first Dean should be Japanese to have active collaboration of Japanese lecturers.
Dr Lele proposed to work on school later.
Dr Tanada proposed to use JAICA regular program as it is fully financed and held every 2 years with three topics.
Dr Hasan proposed instead to appoint Dr Padhy as first dean.
Dr Obaldo proposed a distance learning program modeled over technologist program.
Dr Hasan taking example of the Bangladesh US training program, said he thought organizing a school should be a step by step operation.
Dr Lee proposed to create a task group to prepare a proposal of detail evaluation for establishment of ASNM.
Task Group members will be Dr Krisanachinda, Dr Obaldo, Dr Hasan, and Dr Tanada accepted as consultant.
Dr Hasan will be coordinator of this Task Group.

4) Role of ARCCNM

Firstly Dr Lee explained he wished to define Vice Chairmen role and opened the discussion
His opinion was that they should coordinate each chapter actions.
Dr Obaldo proposed to have them to be advisor and consult only if necessary.
Dr Hassan said he consider this position as ornamental.
Dr Soebowo proposed them to only substitute the chairman if he is unavailable.
The conclusion was to have the working group members to be the regional coordinators.

Role of Task Forces

Dr Poshyachinda proposed them to write guideline to make nuclear medicine more homogeneous in the region.
Moreover, to lead cooperation with other continental groups.

Newsletter: Each chapter through their working group members should do distribution.
Dr Tong mentioned that he is editor in chief of the Asian Journal of NM, which is a Hong Kong Journal in English and Chinese.
Dr Lim asked if proceedings of Annual General Meeting should be published.
Then there was a discussion on linking various journals.

Future Meetings:

Dr Hasan mentioned about contacting countries not yet active before next activity.
Dr Lee asked working group members to attend annual meeting and asked about needs of working group.
Proposal for Executive Board is June 1. The second Working Group Meeting will be held 4 to 8 weeks after the 1st Annual General Meeting.
First candidate is Vietnam.
As for the Second Annual General Meeting, in 2003, candidate country is Philippines.

All matters being exhausted, the meeting was then closed.