Since we last wrote, we had just been to Ethiopia in 2013 for the 1st FIGO African Congress in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Since then, we have traveled to Istanbul for the International Association of Adolescent Health, the European Society for Contraception in Copenhagen, yearly NASPAG meetings with a growing contingent of FIGIJ members, and of course, participated in World Contraceptive Day, thanks to the efforts of FIGIJ Board Member Jose Enrique Pons (our beloved Quique). In the fall of 2014, the FIGIJ board met and participated in the EURAPAG meeting hosted by BritSPAG in London, thanks to the effort of FIGIJ Board member and BritSPAG President Professor Paul Wood. In 2015, we again met at the NASPAG meeting in Orlando, Florida, with Paul Wood delivering a keynote, “The Cutting Edge of Cosmetic Labioplasty” and board members convening in person and by Skype. Thanks to the efforts of FIGIJ, FIGO world congress offerings now include a growing PAG presence. At the at the FIGO World Congress in Vancouver in the fall of 2015, a FIGIJ sponsored session on PAG Pearls included talks by Dvora Bauman on “Just the Same but Different: Recognizing Variations in Presentation between the PAG Patient and the Adult”; Ellen Rome presenting “Bleeders and Clotters, or Vaginal Bleeding in the Adolescent”, and Paul Wood shared his talk on the Cutting Edge of Cosmetic Labioplasty.
FIGIJ has survived on Skype, GoTo Meeting, and plenty of emails. Our earliest web efforts have been thwarted, but 2016 represents a new year, with new energy vested in the success of our web presence. Please let us know what you would like to see posted on our website, and what links you would find most useful. Email your FIGIJ president, Ellen Rome, at [email protected] with any suggestions.
Here is Ellen, visiting Lucy in Addis Ababa, having first met Lucy ironically as a child at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in her Ohio hometown…!