NewcastleGateshead is hosting several high-level medical conferences and meetings over the coming months, which have been secured by ‘conference ambassadors’, who are promoting North East England as a centre of excellence for medical and scientific research and facilities.

This week at Newcastle University, the British arm of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine met. Some 120 delegates from as far afield as North America and parts of Europe came together with physicists who are experts in magnetic resonance. They, together with clinical experts, who are specialists in their own fields of medical science, and clinical radiologists, who carry out magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, shared new findings and new techniques of investigating the body.

Meanwhile, from 4-6 November, the First National Point of Care Ultrasound Congress meets at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, with 200 delegates, including international leading experts, taking the opportunity to learn and hear how to set up ultrasound facilities and take valuable new skills from the summit. This event is organised by the Northern Emergency Medicine Ultrasound Group, a not-for-profit educational group, with the support of the College of Emergency Medicine and the British Medical Ultrasound Society.

Commenting on the September conference, Professor of Medicine and Metabolism, Roy Taylor, director of the Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre at Newcastle University, said: “This meeting will act as a catalyst for both research and clinical scanning.

“NewcastleGateshead has built a world-class research team based on magnetic resonance, however, this has all happened in the last three years, and the conference was a golden opportunity to put the destination on the map for this research. It will both help the science and will have an effect on the economy of the North East as we attract increasing numbers of researchers from all around the world.

“Organising the conference in NewcastleGateshead is made very much easier by the help from the NewcastleGateshead Convention Bureau team, and the possibility of using the Centre for Life as a major attraction for the social evening associated with the conference.”

Meanwhile, Bob Jarman, consultant in emergency medicine at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, looked ahead to the ultrasound conference, saying: “North East medical expertise has played a key role in the national development of 'point-of-care' ultrasound especially in accident and emergency and intensive care departments. With this medical expertise behind us, we are extremely pleased to have been asked to host the First National Point of Care Ultrasound Congress.”