March 2013 – Reports – Sleep Medicine Committee (SMC)
Published in: ESRS Newsletter, March 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 is preparing the second grandparent examination of Somnologists in Berlin 2013. This examination will take place on Thursday, 11 April 2013 at 19.15-20.30 during the Sleep and Breathing congress, jointly organised by ESRS and ERS. This second occasion gives chances to many more grandparents of sleep medicine to receive the prestigious certification by the ESRS. With 114 applications even more people than for Paris applied this time. More than 70 persons were found eligible for the examination and are currently preparing the event.
Regular applications, including those who missed both grandparent rounds, will be considered at the next ESRS congress 2014 in Tallinn. The rules for future rounds will be specified with precise details in a later newsletter.
In addition, in Tallinn, a grandparents round of examination is planned for sleep technologists in close cooperation with the European Sleep Technologist Association.
The “Catalogue of knowledge and skills” publication is currently under revision and will become the basis for education and examination of sleep medicine in the future. The next important publication will be the update on the sleep centre accreditation. This update does not only include technical issues which came up after the initial publication in 2006, but will also discuss the different levels of sleep centres which we observe in Europe. We do see Sleep centres, which cover all aspects of sleep medicine including rare disorders, and we do see Sleep centres which are much more specialised to the few most prevalent sleep disorders. This discussion is needed together with the two societies involved, the ESRS and the ERS.
To continue the alignment of the ESRS somnologist certification with the European Respiratory Society (ERS), the HERMES program for respiratory sleep medicine is discussed in order to join workforces. For doing so, the Sleep and Breathing conference in Berlin is a very good opportunity and the Sleep Medicine Committee will meet there.
Thomas Penzel