2017 - FIP Seoul

We landed almost an hour after we were supposed to due to the late departure from Hong Kong.  However, Immigration was a breeze and my bag was out after about eight minutes of waiting, very unusual for me. I declared my muesli bars that I had taken from Australia but not eaten, and when I told this to the Customs Official, he asked me if I had any chicken legs, chicken livers, etc, etc and when I answered in the negative, he gave me a green stamp.  When I got to the front of the queue, I was told I was free to leave – yay for accurate declarations! I was at the domestic check-in counter very soon after and the T-Bus was there when I walked out of the terminal.  I was in the domestic QC about 45 minutes after touch down – not a bad effort.  First priority was a decent coffee and then a shower.  Those two tasks completed, it was down to the business of eating a more substantial breakfast than a tablespoon of muesli.  Breakfast completed, I opened up the com...

Yesterday I calculated that If I left the hotel on the 10:25am bus I would be at the airport with plenty of time to spare. I then figured that I did not need to start packing until this morning. However, I awoke in a panic and leapt out of bed before I had checked the time - 5:58am! Oh well, no time like the present to start the packing process. Steve, Sylvain and I had a leisurely but not too filling breakfast at 7:30am, said our goodbyes and went our own ways. Steve was going jewellery shopping for Sally and Sylvain was off to visit another UNESCO site - a fortress of some description; if it is more speccy than the ones we have already seen, I will be most unpleased. I checked out at 10am and waited in the lobby for a while instead of on the street waiting for the bus. Bumped into Nicole and she said she was also taking the bus to the airport so we sat and waited together. The bus was on time and we were at the airport about 80 minutes later.  We had 20 minutes to wait until th...

A little sleep in today. The only thing we HAD to do was hold an extraordinary Board meeting so we were not in any particular hurry. After a leisurely breakfast, we convened at 9:30am and the meeting was concluded by 12pm. After lunch, I stayed behind and caught up on admin whilst the others went shopping in the city. We all met in the lobby at 6pm for pre-dinner drinks at the German beer place we found last night that serves Korean beer "Kloud" for KRW1000 for happy hour until 7pm. It was then off to the Korean BBQ place we found on Sunday - the night of the Opening ceremony. They took quite a while to serve us so we were there a while, and quite hungry. Because Jane and Ann were leaving before breakfast tomorrow, we said goodbye to them before heading to our rooms for the night. It is always sad to say goodbye knowing that it will be at least another 12 months until we all meet again. I wasn't tired so whilst doing some MEPS work I drank the beer I discovered in my ...

We had to be at the departure point at 8am so it was another early breakfast and a leisurely stroll to meet the bus. For once, all the members were on time and we left a few minutes early. MEPS visited the Korean Armed Forces Medical Emergency Operation Centre (MEOC) in Seoul, where we were shown a short video introducing the Armed Forces Medical Command (AFMC) which commands the individual services (Army, Navy, Air Force) and controls 14 military hospitals. We were then given a brief about the MEOC which is basically a 'one-stop-shop' for medical support for the Korean military. Medical support can be requested in a number of ways including via a smart phone app. They currently have six dedicated medical evacuation helicopters, with a further eight to come online in 2019/20. The helicopters have decreased the evacuation time from four hours to just over one hour, thereby increasing the chance of survival. The MEOC also provides a very comprehensive telemedicine service. The Ce...

Another early start –6:30am breakfast for 7:15am breakfast session at COEX. I am quite pleased I made the effort to get up early and have breakfast as there was no breakfast at the session, not even coffee.   After a short break, we started the first MEPS session which consisted of three presentations on the theme Pharmacy Inspections: Standardising pharmacy practice one site at a time.   We then held a panel discussion on who conducts inspections and under what authority, what activities are inspected/audited and how are the results communicated and addressed.   I represented SOCOMD on the panel discussions.   After lunch, we held the MEPS Business meeting, followed by the second MEPS session – Humanitarian pharmacists: Time to develop a competency framework.   I co-chaired the session with Steve. After a quick change of clothes back at the hotel, it was time to depart for the MEPS dinner.  Mr Chang (from the Local Organising Committee) was there to pick s...

A relatively early start after a phone call from Greg. Didn't really need to be awake at 6am after the after 11pm finish last night, but, better early than late! Was at breakfast just after 7am for an 8:30am departure to start our MEPS Board Meeting at 9am. The meeting went well and before we knew it, it was time for lunch. My favourite, not, Burger King was the first shop we came to and we only had 15 minutes to eat, so we had that. Wasn't toooo bad, and we were back upstairs waiting to start the lunch time session. Sylvain was co-Chair and we had one MEPS speaker - a US Navy pharmacist - Angie Klinski speak about telepharmacy in the US Navy. As their laws have just been changed to prevent a medicine from being dispensed without being checked by a pharmacist, the US Navy had to change the way they did business in order to comply. Lessons can be learned here. Presentations regarding the refugee crisis followed and then a series of presentations on counterfeit medicines and ...