To our WABIP friends and colleagues,

Join us in Florence, Italy May 8-11, for the 2016 World Congress for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology (website here). This biennial scientific meeting will offer the newest information about advances in technologies, education, and research to help you care for your patients with lung, airway, and pleural disorders.

Whether you are new to our society, or a veteran of our growing organization, Florence will offer you many opportunities to renew friendships, meet colleagues from around the world, share your experiences with others, improve your skills and knowledge of procedures and disease processes, and indulge in a variety of great cultural experiences in the setting of Renaissance Italy.

Before the conference itself, there will be a series of hands-on workshops where you can practice technical applications in new and well established interventional procedures. Skilled and experienced instructors will coach you through airway maneuvers until you gain enough confidence to take these procedures home to your patients.

During the conference, there will be didactic lectures, interactive sessions, and expert panel discussions to highlight clinical problems and new scientific findings. There will also be keynote lectures and plenty of opportunities to meet with WABIP award recipients, committee chairs, members, and international regents so you can express your needs and tell us more about yourself, your region, and what you would like the WABIP to do so that you can enhance your clinical, educational, and research practices.

So join us in Florence for an exciting number of days catching up with old friends, meeting many new ones, enjoying fine Italian hospitality, food, music, and culture in one of the art and sculpture capitals of the world. We look forward to seeing you this spring!

Henri Colt MD, FCCP, FAWM Chair, WABIP

Stefano Gasparini MD, FCCP President, WCBIP Florence, Italy