Czech Society of Clinical Biochemistry
The Czech Society of Clinical Biochemistry is a part of The Czech Medical Association of Jan Evangelista Purkyně and has 1183 members (31/12/2007), including 779 University graduates and 404 laboratory assistants. Among the graduates, there are 223 medical doctors and 556 graduates from other Universities.
The Society has 19 foreign members from Slovakia.
The initial meeting of the clinical chemistry section of the Czech Medical Society of J.E. Purkyně was held on October 10th, 1958. The electoral meeting was held on March 20th, 1959. Prof. Jaroslav Hořejší was elected the first president. The Czech Society of Clinical Chemistry was established on April 24th, 1959.
- The Board of the Society consists of 7 members and the supervising committee has 3 members.
- The Board meetings take place monthly.
- The Board was elected for four years.
The most prestigious Awards of The Society are as follows: Hořejší´s medal, The prize for the best publication and The prize for the best educational material, and are given annually.
An important part of the activity of The Society is to issue the guidelines or recommendations on different topics, eg. cardiac markers, diabetes mellitus, glucometers, POCT, screening of Downs syndrome, for generals practitioners, EQA, IQA, cerebrospinal fluid. Manuals Preanalytical phase, Internal Quality Control, Vitamins and Metrology were published by The Society.
The Society signed a contract with EDMA in 2008 on the Czech version of Lab-test-On-line for education of the whole society, not only for physicians.
The Czech Society of Clinical Chemistry is a member of IFCC and EFCC. Some of the society members are also members of foreign societies of clinical chemistry. The society has been entering into international contacts. Distinguished speakers from many countries took part in The Society Congresses, meetings or workshops.
Every second year, together 21 meetings on clinical chemistry were organized under The Czechoslovak Society of Clinical Chemistry. The last, 21st meeting took place in Brno in 1989. Since 1946, the group of the laboratory assistants has organised national meetings BIOLAB. After the splitting of Czechoslovakia, The Society has organized the national Congress with biannual frequency and many additional regional or topic-oriented meetings. The last VIIIth Congress took place in České Budějovice in September 2007 and topics such as sepsis, pharmacogenomics, nephrology, new techniques in biochemistry and molecular biology, coagulation and toxicology were included. More then 500 participants attended the Congress.
We hosted some very important professional events. Euromedlab 2001, which was held in Prague, visited more then 2800 scientists. The 2nd European Congress of Clinical Chemistry took place in Prague in October 1976. 1,500 experts participated in this Congress.
The Czech Society of Clinical Chemistry co-operated on the organization of the Alps-Adria Congress held in Karlovy Vary in September 1998. The FESCC Symposium 2004 in Prague focused on postgraduate education and 80 delegates from European clinical chemistry societies participated in it.
The Society publishes quarterly the Journal „Clinical Biochemistry and Metabolism“ (printed since 1993). The Journal is focused on the problems of clinical biochemistry, pathophysiology, pathobiochemistry, nutritional support and nuclear medicine. It contains reviews, original papers, case reports and methodical studies. In the last 5 years it is also an official journal of The Society of Medical Genetics. It continues all positive traditional features of the Journal Biochemia Clinica Bohemoslovaca (1972-92). The journal is published in Czech and Slovak with English summaries, some articles are written in English, and is indexed in Excerpta Medica/Embase. The supplement contains the program and abstracts from national congress.
From February 1975 till January 1991, the Board published Information of The Czech Society of Clinical Chemistry for the society members. Since 1991, FONS information bulletin has been published. It is concentrated on actual practical problems of development and running of biochemical labs.
The Czech Society of Clinical Chemistry co-operates on the EQA from 1992 and is in close connection with SEKK, the national organizer of EQA.
Last ten years we are developing and improving the accreditation system for medical labs.
The labs accredited according to ISO 15189 (some lab also ISO 17025) using the national accreditation body (Czech Institute of Accreditation). Some laboratories are certified by ISO 9001. The Czech Medical Association also established The National Accreditation Body for clinical laboratories which issues Audits for labs.