UNEPSA Website

Dear colleagues,

welcome to the UNEPSA Website 2001.

When asked “what is UNEPSA” paediatricians in all European countries may give a variety of answers or may even not be able to give a precise answer at all. The reason for this is that until now, only very limited information regarding UNEPSA activities has been published, mostly as short reports in national paediatric journals, and even then not in all of these periodicals. Attempts were made by UNEPSA to establish a new journal, Paediatrics in Europe. Unfortunately this failed early on in the nineties and there were several reasons for this, one of which being the weak financial background of our union. Thus, we are not sure that UNEPSA is known to the majority of 170,000 paediatricians working in 41 European countries.

Some paediatricians may ask what UNEPSA can offer to European children and paediatricians. In fact UNEPSA offers a triple A concept that is: 1. UNEPSA wants to support the role of paediatricians in being the advocats of all European children, 2. UNEPSA wants to improve the assimilation of paediatricians from Eastern European countries in the global family of paediatricians and 3. UNEPSA is heading for a new Association of Paediatricians in Europe that will allow them to speak with one voice. UNEPSA will respect the existing European paediatric societies and associations, however, we strongly feel that time has come to found an institution which will be strong enough to represent all three branches of paediatrics, i.e. primary care paediatrics, secondary care paediatrics and tertiary care paediatrics. In the year 2000 there were more than 30 different European Paediatric Societies or Associations representing groups of countries or groups of subspecialists, however there was no single European body that was strong enough to represent European paediatrics as a whole. For historical reasons , this new society does not necessarily have to be UNPSA itself, but UNEPSA wants to be an active partner in proceeding to a more efficient and unifying concept of organising all European paediatricians. We feel that UNEPSA and CESP will have to play the role of pioneering a common and co-operative concept of European paediatrics.

To begin with, we think that now is the time to create a new platform for European paediatricians to allow a more efficient form of communication with UNEPSA which is the INTERNET.

When organising international meetings in Central Europe or in Western countries, we found out that many people in Eastern countries had limited access to methods of communication and to major international paediatric journals - but what they did have was access to the Internet!

The aim of this new UNEPSA Website will be to spread recent information on European paediatrics through the Internet.

The UNEPSA Website plans to target not only paediatricians working at academic university institutions, but also in primary care settings and in general hospitals.

The editorial board of UNEPSA Newsletters and Website has offered all national paediatric societies and associations the possibility to create a homepage for their news. You will find the names of these societies below.

We are alse aware of the fact that young paediatricians especially are familiar with computer technology, including the Internet and e-mail, and that these young colleagues will play a special role in the future of paediatrics. We believe also that they will promote global cooperation of paediatricians regardless of the limitations imposed by place or age.

Amongst other things, it is our aim to assist paediatricians from Eastern Europe, who, due to their geographical and financial problems are somewhat excluded from international meetings, to achieve a sense of community within the European paediatric world.

On behalf of the UNEPSA-Council

Home Page of UNEPSA

Proposal for the UNEPSA web site and UNEPSA Newsletters (later v.s. EPA web site) | UNEPSA (EPA) missions and aims | Contacts,  UNEPSA Council |
Constitution of UNEPSA | Draft of EPA (European Paediatric Association) | National Paediatric Societies in Europe | Paediatric Subspeciality Societies |
Minutes of the UNEPSA General Assembly | Demography of Paediatric Primary Care (PPC) in Europe