Dear Members,

As we welcome the New Year, let me wish you and your family a very happy and healthy 2016.

It has already been a year since I stated "I will continue to put all my effort into the numerous tasks remaining at the ORL Society of Japan" in the 2015 New Year's message. I would like to thank the board members, the committee members, and last but not least all the staff of The ORL Society of Japan. I believe we were able to make good on our promise to work on many tasks throughout the year.

For your information, here are our reports on the current situation of the ORL Society of Japan.

・Organizational Changes

1) The following Six committees will be discontinued due to unfavorable results over the past few years:
* Working Group of Anti-Medical Specialist in a Specific Area
* Ethics Deliberation Working Group, Anti-External Working Group
* Working Group of the ORL Society of Japan Office
* Working Group of Speech-Language Pathologists
* SPIO Working Group

2) The bylaws and the management structure of the "Medical Association Council" of the ORL have also been revised. The Council is hereby able to discuss and stand as equals with the ORL Society.

3) For the sake of clarity and transparency in the accounting of academic meetings, an audit committee has been newly set up under the Chairman, the Board of Directors, and the Auditor.

・Medical Specialists Courses
We no longer place facilitators since the 31^st ENT Specialists Course. The venue and the President will be decided soon in the current term.

・The Medical Specialists Examination

1) We have arranged and placed the Committee of the Medical Specialists Examination to be under our co-chairmen as it did not belong to the Committee of Training System for Medical Specialists.

2) Since 2015, we have been holding our annual board meeting on the second day of the examination in July and we also make admission decisions on the same day. As a consequence, we are now able to announce examinees' results in the middle of August, just two weeks after the exam.

・Our Office "Chateau Takanawa"

Chateau Takanawa, our former office, seems to have been lying unattended for a long time, so we have decided to ask a special lawyer to deal with all procedures of its reconstruction based on a study of the re-development of the Shinagawa area.

・125th Anniversary of the ORL Society of Japan, Inc.
We are planning to hold the 125th anniversary ceremony at the 119th ORL Society meeting in 2018 because we had no ceremonies after the 100th ceremony was held.

Besides the work I have mentioned above, our committees have achieved satisfactory results in many other cases. During the remainder of my term, I promise to respond to all other issues positively.

Finally, I would like to thank all the members again and respectfully ask for your continuous responses and support for this year.

Sincerely yours,

Yasuo Hisa, MD, PhD
Chairman, Board of Directors
The Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Society of Japan, Inc.

(January 5^th, 2016)