ESRS Newsletter February 2024

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We’re now 2 months into 2024, and I’m pleased to announce that we’ve been working assiduously to finalise a lot of plans for several upcoming activities.

For the first time ever, the 11th Examination of Certification in Sleep Medicine for Sleep Technologists will be available in 2 languages: English and Spanish. This one-time offering of the Spanish edition is supported and sponsored by the Spanish national sleep society: Sociedad Española del Sueño (SES). This is a joint effort between the ESRS and SES is to make the examination more accessible for Technologists. Anyone who is qualified to take the ESRS Sleep Technologist examination, can choose to register for the English or Spanish version, membership in the SES or residency in Spain is not a pre-requisite. The application deadline for the Sleep Medicine Examination for Sleep Technologists has been extended to 29 February to accommodate this late announcement. 

Applications for the 13th Examination of Certification in Sleep Medicine for Somnologists have also been extended until 4 February to compensate for technical issues being reported in starting and editing applications this week.

In other news, the call for Sleep Europe 2024 abstracts is now open until 2 April, so I encourage you to contribute to the scientific programme by submitting your best science to be considered for an oral or poster presentation. 860 abstracts were presented at Sleep Europe 2022 (Athens, Greece), and we hope to surpass that this year.

Sleep Europe 2024 will be a hybrid format – while we encourage you to attend in Seville, the programme will be available LIVE online and on-demand if travel isn’t possible. However, to ensure the best experience in Seville, all speakers and session chairs are still required to present in person. Stay tuned for further news on the preliminary programme and registration.

While we continue preparations to meet in-person in Seville, Spain in September, we still endeavour to host digital learning events. Registration will open next week for ESRS’s latest webinar on the “Contemporary Management of Central Sleep Apnoea (CSA)”. This will be held on 5 March at 14:00 CET. Our own Vice President (Clinical) Prof. Dr. Dirk Pevernagie will moderate, and will be joined by Prof. Dr. Johan Verbraecken, Dr. Jeryll Asin and Dr. Robin Germany. Zoll Respicardia has generously supported this webinar allowing ESRS to continue to offer webinars free of charge for all participants.

Finally, I’m also pleased that we received 85+ qualified applications for the 1st ESRS Paediatric Sleep School. Thank you for all applications and for your patience – the committee had very tough decisions to make due to space limitations, as only 50 individuals could be accepted for participation. We look forward to welcoming those selected in Bertinoro, Italy.

Kind regards,

Pierre-Hervé Luppi
ESRS President