A heartfelt thanks to all the folk who put in such hard work to deliver an excellent BGS Spring Meeting in sunny Aberdeen recently.

As usual the meeting was packed with many excellent presentations and thought provoking issues. It was particularly nice to see so many of the special interest groups being so active and displaying their wares at the national meeting. I personally attended the Ethics SIG and enjoyed being exposed to the concept of value based medicine.

We also carry information in this issue on the Parkinson's disease section of the BGS, in particularly its master class series, which is due to begin again later this year.

We pay a visit to the academic dept in Newcastle in this issue, but on a more sombre note, pay tribute to people we have known, who have passed away.

Changes afoot
Alistair Main tells us that further NTNs will come into the service in the near future. His report gives us only a tiny hint of re-engineering and restructuring in the training of junior medical staff which is about to hit us over the next year or two. A chat with your local Clinical Tutor will give you a flavour of what is to come. Hold on to your hats as phrases such as "foundation course" and "Mini CeX" begins to drift into your consciousness.

On the service side David Black, the new Chair of English Council, gives us an update on the National Older Peoples Task Force and for the second time in this newsletter mentions the Department of Health sponsored initiative within an American company called "Evercare". It will be very interesting to see the results of this particular initiative over the next 12 to 24 months.

Our report on CHI gives us a flavour of the ever-changing nature of acronyms. Jonathan Potter gives us an interesting insight into how this commission operates but also explains how CHI is evolving into CHAI. Ian Philp mentioned in Aberdeen that CHI or CHAI will shortly be looking at the implementation of the Older People’s NSF around England. Jonathan also tells us about the Clinical Practice Evaluation Group.

Cath Church mentions a revised constitution for the Trainees’ Group. The BGS has been awash with constitutional issues in the last year and it is a credit to their authors that they appear to be adopted without much rancour by the members.

Many I remind members to think about applying for the post of Spring Meetings Secretary. Details of these very interesting posts can be had from central BGS and the March newsletter.

Scottish piping and BPH
During a comfort break after the main course at the BGS dinner in Aberdeen, I found myself joined in the sanctuary of the gents loo by our splendid Scottish piper for the evening. As he began to attend to his biological functions to my amazement he began to squeeze one bladder, i.e. his bag pipes, and played for a good 25 to 30 seconds. The question came to mind: is it possible, in the folklore of Scottish piping that if one begins to suffer the effects of BPH in middle to late middle age, emptying a bagpipe bladder enhances one’s ability to evacuate the other bladder? It may make physiological sense. Are any of our readers north of the border able to shed some light on my musing?

Finally, on behalf of the members of the BGS, I wish a speedy recovery to full health to both Chandi Vellodi and Richard Lynham.

Kevin Kelleher
Editor