Charter of the Raymond B. Fink

International Anesthesia Conferences

Aim

To enhance the understanding of the mechanisms of action of general anesthetics.

Structure of Meeting

SYMPOSIA: The meeting is usually structured around Symposia attended by all participants. Two symposia, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon are held each day. The schedule of the symposia should allow for considerable structured discussion. Symposia should not run simultaneously. Topics are usually selected by the organizers in consultation with the full committee. Sometimes the final symposium has been a debate.

WORSHOPS: In addition to the symposia, two or more workshops are held each day usually in the evenings, and run concurrently. They are focused sessions dealing with important topics of restricted interest. They vary in format from mini-symposia to open discussion.

POSTER SESSIONS Poster sessions are integrated into the meeting. Posters should be in an area where participants can congregate during coffee breaks and social times. This has proven to be an occasion that is difficult to organize effectively. Topics are partly suggested by the organizers and partly by the participants.

Environment

The meeting should be held in an environment that encourages scientific and social interactions between the participants throughout the day, and that discourages “off campus” activities. An isolated compact and comfortable location adjacent to informal areas such as cafes or bars works best. Accommodation should be comfortable yet reasonably priced in order to encourage the attendance of young investigators. Custom conference centers or campuses have worked well. City centers offer too many distractions and are to be avoided.

Organization

The International Organizing Committee should have two members from each of three regions (America, Asia, and Europe). The Local Organizing Committee constituted for the next meeting consists of the two International Organizing Committee members in whose region the meeting is to be held, together with one or two designated assistants. The Local Organizing Committee works closely with the International Organizing Committee on all aspects of the meeting including dates, venue and scientific program.

International Organizing Committee Consists of:

America

• Keith Miller, Harvard Medical School, USA.
• Sheldon Roth, University of Calgary, Canada.
• Beverley Orser, University of Toronto, Canada.

Asia

• TBA

Europe

• TBA

Timing

Between each meeting there should be an interval of sufficient length to ensure that significant advances have occurred since the last meeting. In the past, the conferences were held about every 5 years. More recently, this interval has been reduced based on a sense of more rapid progress being achieved in the field. The meeting is not to be held annually.

The conference has generally been held during the month of June for two primary reasons; it is just before departments of anesthesia (in North America at least) receive new residents (in July), and it is after the academic year for many nonclinicians.

The duration of three days provides sufficient time for an intense, near total immersion, experience, and is said to be a good length for clinician scientists who find it more difficult to take time off. On occasion the meeting has been a day longer.

Publication

Traditionally the proceedings have been published in some form that has varied over the years. The idea is to give some milestone statement of the state of the field at the time of the meeting.

History

This series of conferences was founded by Raymond B. Fink. There is some debate about how many meetings there have been. In his forward to the 1984 meeting, Ray Fink wrote:

“… continuing a series that began at the University of Washington where I hosted two, four or five previous ones depending on how far back one wishes to count (1, 3–6) … At that Seattle took up where Paris left off in 1951 (2).”

The references he quotes are:

1. Cellular Biology and Toxicity of Anesthetics. Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1972.
2. Mécanisms de la Narcose. Paris, Coll. Internat. C.N.R.S., 1950.
3. Molecular Mechanisms of Anesthesia, 1. New York, Raven Press, 1975.
4. Molecular Mechanisms of Anesthesia, 2. New York, Raven Press, 1980.
5. Neurophysiology in relation to anesthesiology. Anesthesiology 1967: 28:1–120.
6. Toxicity of Anesthetics. Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1968.

However, the first international conference was in 1974, so we count from there (three of the possible five Seattle meetings Ray mentions are included below.)

Date	Title	Where	Organizers
1951	Mécanisms de la Narcose	Paris	Fink
1967 May	Toxic Effects of Anesthetics	Seattle, USA	Fink
1974 12–14 June	International Conference on Molecular Mechanisms of Anesthesia	Seattle, USA	Fink
1979 14-16 June	2nd International Research Conf. on Molecular Mechanisms of Anesthesia	Seattle, USA	Fink
1984 13-15 June	3rd International Conference on Molecular & Cellular Mechanisms of Anesthesia	Calgary, Canada	Roth & Miller
1990 25-28 June	Molecular & Cellular Mechanisms of Alcohol and Anesthetics	Calgary, Canada	Roth, Rubin & Miller
1997 18-20 June	5th International Conference on Molecular & Cellular Mechanisms of Anesthesia	Calgary, Canada	Roth & Miller
2001 28–30 June	6th International Conference on Molecular & Basic Mechanisms of Anesthesia	Bonn, Germany	Urban & Richards (Roth, & Miller)
2005 26–28 Feb	7th International Conference On Basic and Systemic Mechanisms of Anesthesia	Nara, Japan	Mashimo & Ogli (Miller, Roth, Richards & Urban)
2010 15-18 June	8th International Conference On Mechanisms of Anesthesia	Toronto, Canada	Orser, Roth & Miller