History of the World Federation of Societies for Laser Medicine and Surgery (WFSLMS) and its Non-Profit Organization (NPO-WFSLMS): Part 1: Origins to Inaugural Meeting, 2005.

Abstract

The first society formed to represent the "new" field of laser applications in medicine and surgery was the late Professor Kaplan's International Society for Laser Surgery and Medicine, held in Israel in 1975. Following the ISLSM lead, a large number of national and international societies were very swiftly formed. As the number grew, it became obvious that some sort of linking forum would help all these separate societies to pool the knowledge of their members for the good of the clinicians and their patients. The World Federation of Societies for Laser Medicine and Surgery was formed to attempt to fill this role. The History: At the 1996 meeting of the Greek Medical Laser Association, the first international forum of representatives from 17 international and national laser societies was convened by Professor Nick Nicolopoulos, and the seed of an idea for a centralized forum to help separate laser societies coordinate efforts and knowledge was planted. This seed was nurtured by the ISLSM as the first medical laser society, and forums were called together at each meeting of the ISLSM and the other related societies from 1997 to 2003. At the 2004 Chinese Medical Laser Society meeting, the idea of worldwide federation of laser societies crystallized into a more tangible form The Inaugural WFSLMS Congress: The convening of the first WFSLMS congress took place in Tokyo in 2005, under the leadership of Professor Kazuhiko Atsumi. At this meeting, Professor Kaplan proposed that a Medical Laser Foundation should be established and donated the first seed money for its formation. Because of the Japanese legal requirements, a foundation was impossible and so a Non-profit Organization (NPO-WFSLMS) was started, based in Japan, to oversee the work and fund the tasks of promoting laser surgery and medicine worldwide, for the good of mankind: the financing, running and holding WFSLMS congresses became one of the tasks of NPO-WFSLMS. Both the WFSLMS and NPO-WFSLMS were therefore on their way to working together for a cohesive approach to try and coordinate the work of all societies dedicated to laser medicine and surgery under the WFSLMS umbrella, with NPO-WFSLMS continuously gathering, administering and disbursing the funds to allow the WFSLMS to run its 4-yearly meetings.