Dear members and friends,

It is a pleasure to address you for the first time as President of SEORL and CCC and to invite you to our 70th National Congress / V Congress of the Ibero-American Academy of ORL, which will take place from October 3 to October 6 2019 in Santiago de Compostela.

This will be the third time our Society is holding its Congress in Galicia; it was first organized in Santiago de Compostela in 1978 and then in A Coruña in 2002. Therefore, it will surely be an excellent opportunity to visit this region again.

For the first time in many years, our Congress will take place from Thursday to Sunday, since we believe this format can be far more appealing and will ensure a higher attendance of specialists every day, including Sunday.

The newly appointed President of our Meetings and Congresses Committee, together with the whole Board of Directors, is eagerly and tirelessly working in order to organize the best possible Congress, endowed with a scientific program aimed at satisfying all attendees´ quality and quantity requirements. In addition, our staff of foreign guests will definitely be a guarantee of scientific success.

On this occasion and for the first time since its creation in Madrid in 2009, Spain will host the Congress of the Ibero-American Academy of Otorhinolaryngology. This event will be a great opportunity to invite our Ibero-American colleagues to attend our Congress, which is also theirs, and also to exchange scientific information and visit Galicia, a region many colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic are linked to by family ties.

The Board of Directors Commission, jointly with both local Presidents, has been deeply committed to organizing an attractive social program in order to encourage camaraderie and reunion with friends we cannot see as frequently as we would like to.

I remind seafood fans that October is not close season, therefore, an excellent time to taste marine Galicia products, not to mention land ones, which are also delicious.

This Congress will be one more step in the process of building a Society, which has already been restructured, but can develop even further.

See you in Santiago de Compostela from October 3 to October 6.