The European Association of Societies of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (EASAPS) was founded 5 June 2006 in the city of Lille, France. The official inauguration ceremony in the presence of all the founding societies took place in Bordeaux, France on 20 September 2007. The founding member societies were the Société Française de Chirurgiens Esthétiques Plasticiens (SOFCEP), the Asociación Española de Cirugía Estética Plástica (AECEP), the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ästhetisch-Plastische Chirurgie (DGÄPC), the Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Plastische, Rekonstruktive und Ästhetische Chirurgie (SGPRAC), and the Italian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (SICPRE).

The founding trustees were Ulrich T. Hinderer and Yann Levet. The other EASAPS trustees for the first ExCo term included Bernard Cornette de Saint Cyr, Jean-Luc Roffe, Patrick Bui, and Pierre-Alain Debaere for SOFCEP (France), José Manuel Pérez Macias, Ramon Vila Rovira, Miguel Chamosa, and Cristino Suarez Lopez de Vergara for AECEP (Spain), Nigel Mercer, Norman Waterhouse, Douglas MacGeorge, and Adam Searle for BAAPS (Great Britain), Joachim von Finckenstein, Hans Henning Spitalny, Albert Hoffmann, and Hans Jürgen Bargmann for DGÄPC (Germany), Jan Poëll, Christoph Wolfensberger, Jean-François Emeri, and Daniel Knutti for SGPRAC-SSCPRE (Switzerland), and Guido Molea, Mariano Bormioli, Francesco d’Andrea, and Paolo Palombo for SICPRE (Italy).

Within the very short period of only 3 years, EASAPS expanded considerably. Currently, the member societies include SOFCEP (la Société française de Chirurgie Esthétique Plastique), AECEP (la Asociacion española de Cirugia Estetica Plastica), BAAPS (the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery), DGÄPC/VDÄPC (the German Society and the German Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery), SICPRE (the Italian Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery), SGPRAC/SSCPRE (the Swiss Society of Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery), the Romanian Aesthetic Surgery Society, the united Plastic Surgery Societies of the Czech republic and the Slovak republic, the Portuguese Plastic Surgery, the Portuguese Society of Plastic Surgery, the Israel Society for Plastic Surgery, the Aesthetic Plastic Society of Turkey, the Bulgarian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the Hungary Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the Latvian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the Russian Society of Aesthetic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the Finland Society of Plastic Surgery and the Lebanese Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery as an associate member.

The following excerpt from the current constitution of EASAPS enunciates its purpose:

“The aims of EASAPS shall be:

  1. 1.

    To organize, promulgate, and disseminate an interchange of knowledge and ideas between all European national societies or associations of aesthetic plastic surgery for the benefit of plastic, reconstructive, and aesthetic surgeons and of those especially engaged in the practice of aesthetic plastic surgery, and patients seeking procedures of aesthetic surgery or medicine.

  2. 2.

    To protect aesthetic plastic surgery for the well-being of all patients and the public at large.

  3. 3.

    To uphold and maintain the highest ethical standards of personal and professional conduct among its members.

  4. 4.

    To stimulate by all channels and methods available the organization of educational courses, congresses, and publications etc. to promote the Association.

  5. 5.

    To maintain contact and foment cooperation with other international associations of aesthetic plastic surgery, such as ASAPS or OSAPS and specifically with ISAPS, in order to establish common high standards of training.

  6. 6.

    To ensure pan-European representation, stimulating those countries that do not yet have their own association of aesthetic plastic surgery to establish one and to join the EASAPS.

  7. 7.

    To encourage the founding of an aesthetic plastic surgery/chapter in every European country in the event that one does not already exist.

  8. 8.

    To place the name and purposes of this Society before the scientific body of international medicine to promote and protect aesthetic plastic surgery in Europe.”

The ultimate objective is to establish European aesthetic plastic surgical guidelines in education and practice. These guidelines are intended to protect the public from physicians without adequate training in plastic surgery. This process may require European harmonization to standardize surgical procedures within the context of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN: Comité Européen de Normalisation).

The first two meetings of the national societies integrating the annual EASAPS meeting were convened successfully in Madrid in 2008 and Cardiff in 2009. This year’s EASAPS congress, held in Aachen, Germany, was integrated into the annual Spring Academy of the German Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (VDAEPC) in cooperation with the German Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (DGAEPC).

The EASAPS congress in 2010 was endorsed by the International Confederation for Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (IPRAS), European Association of Plastic Surgeons (EURAPS), European Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (ESPRAS) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft der Plastischen, Rekonstruktiven und Ästhetischen Chirurgen (DGPRAEC) and granted 12 European CME credits (ECMEC) by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. This demonstrates the international recognition of this annual meeting.

The congress featured 15 regular sessions, one Best of Europe session, and four panels. A total of 320 surgeons participated in the meeting. The evaluation forms gave a very positive feedback, with 79% of the attendees stating that the congress met their expectations and 81% saying they would recommend this congress “in any case.” The high satisfaction was due to the scientific program, program structure and topic selection.

The international EASAPS faculty consisted of 11 members: Sydney Coleman (New York, NY, USA), Roger Khouri (Miami, FL, USA), Osvaldo Saldanha (Santos, Brazil), Franco Bassetto (Padua, Italy), Riccardo Mazzola (Milano, Italy), Giorgio di Santis (Padua, Italy), Carlos Calixto (Goiania, Brazil), Gino Rigotti (Verona, Italy), Catherine Bergeret-Galley (Paris, France), and Sabah Saleh Moshref (Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia).

Güler Gürsu (Ankara, Turkey) and Yves Gerard Illouz (Paris, France) represented the distinguished honorary faculty. The national faculty included Dennis von Heimburg (Frankfurt), Christian Gabka (München), Magnus Noah (Kassel), Joachim Graf von Finckenstein (Starnberg), Wolfgang Gubisch (Stuttgart), Johannes Bruck (Berlin), Dirk Richter (Wesseling), and Klaus Ueberreiter (Berlin).

The main topic, Liposculpturing—Face and Body, reflected all the different aspects of body contouring with fat including scientific background, current research, and clinical application. Liposculpturing was chosen because adipose tissue has gained tremendous popularity among plastic surgeons as an ancillary or stand-alone procedure for a multitude of indications. Lively and controversial discussions during the congress emphasized the importance of this topic.

A highlight of each EASAPS meeting is the Best of Europe session. Each member society is encouraged to select the best lecture at their national congress. The elected speakers are then invited to present their talk at the next EASAPS meeting. The 2010 Best of Europe session assembled 12 presentations. This session would never have been completed without the hard work of the general secretary, Yann Levet, who tirelessly collected the different contributions throughout the member countries. This year’s contributing countries were France, Germany, Romania, Spain, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Turkey, Portugal, Hungary, and Slovakia. The chairmen voted unanimously for Yehuda Ullmann from Israel as the best of the Best of Europe 2010.

The Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (APS) journal will become the official organ of EASAPS. Currently, all 12 abstracts are published in APS. They exemplify the wide scope and the high standards in research for aesthetic surgery. Hopefully, these abstracts will be published as full papers soon.

I congratulate all authors and encourage them to continue with their outstanding work. Their contributions and efforts keep the Best of Europe session vital and dynamic.