Introduction from the President in 2012 -    Professor Iain Hutchison

In 2012 BAOMS will be 50 years old. It was founded by luminaries such as Norman Rowe, John Hovell and Terence Ward and its inaugural meeting was in London. Over the subsequent years our specialty has advanced spectacularly and this will be one of the conference themes. A symposium entitled “The Face: Back to the Future” will be preceded by the Norman Rowe lecture. This lecture will cover the History of Facial Surgery from The Susruta to the present day.  Turning to our prospects for the future I will invite speakers from OMFS societies in all 5 continents to give presentations in the symposium on where they see OMFS progressing in their part of the world.

The second symposium will be on “The Brain behind the Face”. Three speakers will cover the surgical aspects of craniofacial trauma, craniofacial deformity and oncological craniofacial surgery. They will be followed by The President’s lecture on the “The Neuroscientist’s Perspective of The Face”. This will cover such matters as how we recognise people, what makes us decide that we like or hate them and how all these judgments alter when people’s faces change following surgery.

The third symposium will be about “Beauty and The Face” covering the Anatomy, Psychology and Surgery of aesthetics.

2012 is Olympic year in London. The Games start 6 weeks after our conference, which is located at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Parliament Square. Our exhibition Hall overlooks Westminster Abbey and The Houses of Parliament. The President’s reception will take place on Wednesday evening in the exhibition hall. There will be an “accompanying persons” programme with walking tours of historic sites and, I hope, curator - led tours of some museums or art galleries.

The free paper and posters presentations will as usual be a major feature of the meeting, which will run alongside the Medical Exhibition.