The World Union of Wound Healing Societies is delighted to invite you to our upcoming WUWHS Congress on 1-5 March 2022! Our wish for this congress to be the first face-to-face wound care meeting in the world after the eventful COVID-19 pandemic, is though still with a healthy dose of respect for what the future may bring. A hybrid format is therefore developed alongside the physical program, to accommodate all who would choose to join in that manner.
Since September 2020 the new WUWHS Executive board worked at a rapid pace to reconstruct the congress, whilst maintaining rigorous scientific process. Persons with wounds experienced the full impact of the global pandemic as care interruptions were at the order of the day. Wound clinicians realizing that wound care interruptions do not bode well for limb and life preservation, constructed creative plans to prevent wound care neglect within mandatory contagion measures. WUWHS 2022 therefore incorporated a wound and skin related COVID-stream into the scientific program as a vital part of creating a repository of wound related clinical creativity and interventions, to serve as options for the future, should a pandemic happen again.
Due to the postponement of the 2020 congress, three positions on the Executive Board had to remain vacant until the formal WUWHS Congress General Assembly meeting in 2022. That had led to one founder member and two previous WUWHS presidents being integrated into the Executive Board as Interim members until then. For the first time since the inception of WUWHS, this Executive Board had the honor of having the input of four presidents (past and current) to truly position WUWHS as a flagship organization with a global purpose. This combined insight and experience have helped to address needed changes to the bylaw structure of WUWHS to ensure future growth and consistency of this body. Those elements addressed, had to be approved with a 90% or more agreement vote of the Executive Board to put the bylaw change into effect. By now allowing two societies per country as full-fledged Supporting Societies of WUWHS, the process towards global reach was started and can now grow to its full potential over time.
The International Affairs committee is also hard at work with outreach tasks as a result of the bylaw changes. Actions and activities include the dissemination of the new WUWHS bylaws in a webinar format, the launch of a project competition for Supporting Societies to culminate at the WUWHS 2022 congress and the construction of a COVID-19 position document on wound care lessons learnt in different health care settings and cultures. Supporting Societies will be kept abreast of developments through the work of the International Affairs Committee and regular updates will be posted on this web page.
It is our honor to welcome you to Abu Dhabi for a congress that we know will pleasantly surprise and delight you. Hard diligent work impacting science and lives, need to be rewarded.
That is what we are aiming to do as well.
Sincerely,
Gulnaz Tariq
President WUWHS 2020 Congress
President Elect
