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July 2013 – Reports – Sleep Medicine Committee (SMC)

Published in: ESRS Newsletter July 2013)

ESRS Sleep Medicine Committee (SMC)

Members (2012 – 2014):

Ludger Grote, Simone de Lacy, Marie-Pia d’Ortho, Zoran Dogas, Colin Espie, Diego Garcia-Borreguero, Walter McNicholas, Dirk Pevernagie, Thomas Pollmächer, Andrea Rodenbeck, Marco Zucconi, Thomas Penzel (Chair)

The Sleep Medicine Committee has organised the second grandparent examination of Somnologists in Berlin 2013. The examination took place on 11 April 2013 with 72 persons sitting for the exam and all achieved the minimum required number of correct answers. With this we have now 123 European Somnologists.

Regular applications open to all people who studied sleep medicine and also open to all who missed both grandparent rounds will be possible for the next ESRS congress 2014 in Tallinn. Currently the eligibility criteria are finalised by the sleep medicine committee on the basis of the corresponding publication Pevernagie et al. EU Guidelines for the Certification of Professionals in Sleep Medicine: Report of the Task Force of the ESRS. J. Sleep Research (2009) 18, 136-141. The rules will be published by the end of the year together with the deadline for submitting applications.

In addition to this, a grandparents round of examination is planned for sleep technologists in close cooperation with the European Sleep Technologist Association. This grandparents round will take place in Tallinn 2014 as well and will include questions and scoring of sleep and associated events.

The “Catalogue of knowledge and skills” publication has been further revised in some details and resubmitted. It is assumed that the publication will become public this year. The catalogue will be the basis for sleep medicine education courses and for a textbook covering all aspects of sleep medicine required to pass the examination successfully. The educational issues are covered by the ESRS Education committee. The next publication will be the update on the sleep centre accreditation. This update will include technical issues and propose a structure for different levels of sleep centres that are currently developing in Europe. We see Sleep centres that cover all aspects of sleep medicine, including rare disorders, and there are Sleep centres which are much more specialised in the most prevalent sleep disorders.

The alignment of the ESRS somnologist certification with the European Respiratory Society (ERS), more specifically the HERMES programme for respiratory sleep medicine, is further continued in order to use synergism. Meetings agreeing on this common procedure with ESRS and ERS delegates took place during the Sleep and Breathing conference in April in Berlin.

Thomas Penzel