COVID-19: latest updates Share
In memory of
Dr Werner Bauer, 1947 - 2024
A fine FDIME Board member and a dear friend
Jan Willem Elte, Daniel Sereni and Ramon Pujol
Werner Bauer received his medical education in Zürich 1966-1972.
His clinical work was mainly as an internist-oncologist.
From 2005 up to 2006 he was EFIM Treasurer, he became 2006 President-elect in 2006 and served as an EFIM President between 2006 and 2008. After that he was Past-President for two years.
In this period he became a FDIME Board member and he remained in the Board up to his death.
In the meantime he was also very active in Switzerland.
He was President of the Swiss Society of Internal Medicine, President of the Swiss Institute for further Medical Education and he received a Honorary Doctorate from the Zürich Medical Faculty in 2020 for educational contributions
Werner enjoyed the Yearly Golden Symposiums held in his honour with invitations for many (EFIM) friends, who had to present in the German language.
Werner had a wonderful dry humour. Besides, he admired Osler and his books. He gave many of those books to his friends and colleagues.
He intended to come to Istanbul in March 2024 for the ECIM congress, to meet his friends and drink beers. Unfortunately he passed away a month before the congress.
We lost a fine colleague and a very dear friend. We will miss him a lot.
Bursaries & Grants Available in 2024-2025
EUROPEAN SCHOOL OF INTERNAL MEDICINE (ESIM)
Alexandroupolis, Greece, 10 – 14 June 2025
FDIME offers Bursaries to support Young Internists from low-income EFIM member countries to attend the next ESIM, hosted by the Hellenic Society of Internal Medicine.
Arrival: Sunday 01 June 2025.
Departure: Saturday 07 June 2025.
Course dates: Monday 02 June (09.00 hr) to Friday 06 June 2025 (17.30 hr).
Venue: University General Hospital of Alexandroupolis for the hands-on workshops and in the Egantia Astir Hotel for lectures & other sessions.
Bursary Application closing date: 10.03.2025
For further details, download:
ESIM Bursary Information & Requirements Summer 2025
ESIM Bursary Application Form Summer 20252
FDIME-EFIM 19th CLINICAL RESEARCH SEMINAR
Paris, 09 – 11 October 2024
Young Internists from EFIM member countries who are interested to upgrade their existing clinical research skills may apply for a place at the Clinical Research Seminar.
FDIME will provide funding for economy-rate travel and 3 nights hotel stay in Paris for 15 selected candidates.
Upload your current CV with your online application. Closing date 31 August 2024
For further details, download:
CRS Announcement
CRS Schedule
CRS Application form
Or contact the FDIME Administrator email contact@fdime.org
EUROPEAN SCHOOL OF INTERNAL MEDICINE (ESIM)
Björkliden, Sweden, 10 – 14th February 2025
FDIME offers Bursaries to support Young Internists from low-income EFIM member countries to attend the next ESIM, hosted by the Swedish Society of Internal Medicine.
Arrival: Sunday 9th February 2025.
Departure: Saturday 15th February 2025.
Course dates: Monday 10th February (09.00 hr) to Friday 14th February 2025 (16.45 hr).
Venue: Hotel Fjället, Björkliden, Sweden.
Airport: Stockholm Central (C) or Arlanda airport – Björkliden station (10 minute walk to the hotel).
Bursary Application closing date: 08.10.2024
For further details, download:
ESIM Bursary Information & Requirements
ESIM Bursary Application Form Winter 2025
FDIME RESEARCH GRANTS IN 2025
The Foundation for the Development of Internal Medicine in Europe (FDIME) is offering Research Grant to Young Internists (up to age 38 yrs) to study in.
Research projects including all fields of General Internal Medicine, particularly polymorbidity and other common I.M. conditions.
For further details, download:
Internal Medicine Grant Announcement
Internal Medicine Grant Application Form – closing date 30 June 2025
General conditions
For further information:
Contact the FDIME Administrator email: sjeanbart@yahoo.com
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
29 April 2021
Although the situation of Covid 19 pandemic is now improving in most European countries, the FDIME will not stop its efforts in providing information on this disease to the public. Our next Newsletters will focus on explaining why vaccination is a fundamental weapon against the virus. They will also contain updated data permitting to evaluate the benefit- risk ratio of different types of vaccines and anti-viral treatments.
In this context the goal of FDIME is to help the public by giving unbiased, objective and easy to understand information from international experts.
I wish to express my gratitude to the panel of European internists for their dedication to write our monthly Newsletters.
Prof Daniel Sereni
Did you know? (what are internists and what are they actually doing)
- Internists are experts in diagnosing, treating and caring for adult patients.
- They often serve as medical consultants to physicians in other specialties.
- In some countries internists may specialize in general primary care of adults (for instance in Switzerland); they can also take additional training and “subspecialize” in such areas as endocrinology, hematology/oncology, immunology. Cardiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology and reumatology ususally are independent subspecialties.
- What is internal medicine? (European definition):
The specialty of internal medicine covers a wide range of conditions affecting the internal organs of the body. Although some diseases specifically affect individual organs, the majority of common diseases may affect many internal organs of the body. The internist must then be trained to recognise and manage a broad range of diseases and, with the aging population, many patients with chronic and multiple disorders.
Reduction of dietary sodium is as beneficial as starting a first line antihypertensive agent
- September 17, 2024
Should we take a covid-19 vaccine and a flu vaccine and if so can we take them together? Yes!
- November 29, 2023
Should sodium glucose co-transporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2-i) be the first choice in the treatment of diabetes type 2?
- February 20, 2023
Benefits of inefficient walking: Monty Python-inspired experimental study
- January 19, 2023
Physicians’ responsibility toward environmental degradation and climate change: A position paper of the European Federation of Internal Medicine
- September 27, 2022
Too much is never good: how the “healthy” HDL-cholesterol (HDL-c) can turn into a bad risk
- July 11, 2022
Moderate coffee intake is associated with lower mortality regardless of whether sugar is added
- July 11, 2022
Loss of appetite after major abdominal surgery; the best therapy is chewing gum!
- May 2, 2022
Dance of the porcupines: A view into the rapid development of covid-19 vaccines from around the world
- February 8, 2021
Missing diagnoses during the Covid-19 pandemic:
a year in review
Hector Pifarré i Arolas, Josep Vidal-Alaball, Joan Gil et al. Evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted regular health care service considerably. This is an important problem that may be seen as a fourth wave.
Short final reports of the 2020 Clinical Research Bursary recipients
This post shows short final reports of the 2020 Clinical Research Bursary recipients. Because they are not easy to read in all aspects by lay people, we have added a few sentences in the beginning to explain.
Abstracts FDIME Grant winners
Moulis (France, 2017): The prevalence of thrombocytopenia (too few platelets) and thrombocytosis (too many platelets) and the association with hospital admission and mortality.
Platelets are involved in clot formation. However, they have multiple effects. Notably, they are involved in immune system regulation, participating in the control of infections, and may complicate auto-immune diseases and cancers. Abnormal platelet count (thrombocytopenia and thrombocytosis) reflect disease severity in many condition and therefore can be used as a biomarker of disease severity in patients acutely admitted to hospital for medical conditions.
Arvaniti (Greece, 2018): Epigenetics (changes in genes expression) in autoimmune liver diseases (ALDs)
In our research we studied complex chemical processes and genetic (DNA) changes in blood cells (B and T lymphocytes) in patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and primary biliary cholangitis (PBC). A relationship between changes in these chemical processes with disease activity was found, probably explaining part of the pathogenesis of the diseases and opening new ways for treatment strategies.
Lanzillotta (Italy, 2020): Towards treatment optimization in autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP).
Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is a rare form of inflammation of the pancreas. It carries a higher risk for metabolic and infectious complications, related to glycaemic derangements and biliary strictures or immunosuppressive treatment, respectively. Moreover, AIP is prone to relapse, requiring multiple courses of glucocorticoids that might exacerbate diabetes. Yet, to date there are only scant data on predictors of disease relapse, while data related to risk factors for long-term metabolic and infectious complications are absent.
My project aims at retrospectively identifying baseline disease-related or treatment-related features that are related to long-term outcomes (in terms of disease activity and infectious and metabolic complications). Once recognized, these putative predictors will be tested and employed in a prospective fashion, and ultimately will provide a huge step forward to a more tailored treatment approach.
FDIME Research Grant Award 2019 ECIM 2021
(March 19, 2021)
During the virtual ECIM 2021 the recipient of the FDIME Research Grant 2019 has presented his achievements.
After a short introduction on the aims and activities of FDIME Daniel Sereni, (FDIME President) announced the 2019 winner Francois Rodrigues, resident internal medicine in Paris, who wanted to spend time in Leeds at the Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Research to build a collaboration between two institutes. The period of investigations was intended to be from January up to October 2020.
The research is about a rare familial inflammatory disease. The aim of the project is to better understand the way inflammatory cells are stimulated ; this could lead to the finding of therapeutic targets.
Below you can read more details for doctors and scientists and of course also for other interested readers.
The initial project was on courier transfer of blood samples of patients with TNF receptor associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS). He learned several laboratory techniques, but before the first patient arrived both laboratories in Paris and Leeds were close because of Covid 19. He resumed his work in September 2020 with a new project: Multiple cell isolation (neutrophils, B cells, T cells, monocytes) from whole blood of patients with UBA1 mutations, RNA sequence compared with Sanger sequencing somatic mutation with different impacts according to cell lines using FACS. And then again the FACS facilities were closed. In between some more techniques were learned. The question was: Is metabolism different between white type HEK cells and HEK cells transfected with TRAPS variants? This has not yet been confirmed now, but the collaboration between the Paris and Leeds institutes will be resumed at due time.
FDIME Research Grant
Award Ceremony
FDIME Best Research Abstracts Awards ECIM 2021 (March 20, 2021)
During the virtual ECIM 2021 three abstracts were awarded as FDIME best research abstracts. A jury consisting of Jan Willem Elte (FDIME Secretary General), Ramon Pujol (FDIME Vice President), Nicola Montana (Past EFIM President and FDIME Board member) and Runolfur Palsson (Past-past EFIM President and FDIME Board member) made the definitive selection.
The following three abstracts received the awards:
- 76 IMPAIRED HOST ANTIVIRAL TH1 AND CD8 RESPONSE IN HIGHLY INFLAMMATORY SARS-COV-2 PATIENTS
Dr Janine Rupp from Austria
The T cell composition, activation and proliferation in patients with severe (n=8) or critical (n=12) Covid 19 and matched healthy controls ( 2 per Covid patient) were assessed.
Beside lymphopenia several abnormal Th cell patterns were identified and also CD4+ and CD8+ cells amongst others differed from healthy controls suggesting active anti-viral T cell defense.
Conclusion: the data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 induced CRS ( cytokine release syndrome) may impair viral clearance by blunting the antiviral T-cell response. - 115 EFFICACY OF CDSS IN IMPROVING ANTI-RESORPTIVE BONE PROTECTIVE THERAPY AMONGST ORTHOGERIATRIC INPATIENTS: A COMPARISON STUDY
Dr Lata Bhandary from Ireland
Subject of the study was to compare the proportion of patients commenced on ABPT ( anti-resorptive bone protective therapy) following the introduction of a clinical decision support system (CDDS) to support appropriate ABPT prescribimg by non-specialists.
An orthogeriatric patient cohort before (2019) and after (2020) was studied. In 2019 31 % (55/178) did not receive orthogeriatric specialist input and only 27 % (15 of 55) had ABPT. In 2020 17 % (32/185) did not receive specialist input, however, 44 % (14/32) were commenced on ABPT.
Overall more patients were prescribed ABPT in 2020 (78 %) than in 2019 (55 %).
Conclusion: a CDDS improves ABPT prescribing and may reduce specialist appointments, long-term mortality and future health costs. - 1072 GLUTEN-SPECIFIC CD4+ T CELLS EXPRESS A DISTINCT SET OF MARKERS AFTER GLUTEN CHALLENGE THAT CORRELATE WELL ON THE TRANSCRIPTOMIC AND PHENOTYPIC LEVEL
Dr Stephanie Zühlke from Norway
After a 3-day gluten challenge in CeD (Coeliac Disease) blood was sampled after 6 days. A clear increase in gut-homing gluten-specific effector-memory (CD4) T cells were observed in all 6 patients. Transcriptome analysis revealed 94 DE genes coding for cell surface markers, phenotypically similar with gluten-specific T-cells. So the gluten-specific cells from blood after gluten challenge may serve as an alternative outcome measure in clinical drug trials.
In short: gluten-specific CD4+ T cells express a distinct set of markers after gluten challenge.
FDIME Awards Ceremony
Recent News
- March 20, 2025
- December 19, 2024
- November 7, 2024
- September 17, 2024
- July 31, 2024
- July 9, 2024