In Memoriam: Professor Shiro Miwa and his contributions to ISH

 

Dr. Shiro Miwa, past Chairman of the ISH Council, passed away suddenly from pneumonia on January 12, 2006, at the age of 80. He had been in good health until December 2005, when he attended The American Society of Hematology in Atlanta and he caught flu-like illness. After his return to Tokyo he began to have fever and was hospitalized with a sad outcome. The news of his unexpected death shocked all of us who have been privileged to know him and have been working with him in the various activities of our Society.

Dr. Miwa is an internationally well known hematologist for his pioneer study on hemolytic anemia, and has been a member of our Society for many years.

He was elected to Secretary-General of Asian-Pacific Division at the VIIth Congress of Asian-Pacific Division in　Hong Kong in 1991.He then served as Chairman of the ISH Council from 1996 to 2000. During his tenure as Chairman and APD Secretary-General, he has devoted his selfless service and has exercised effective leadership to promotion of our Society. Since I succeeded him as APD Secretary-General, I witnessed how hard and sincerely our Chairman worked for the Society. It was the time when we faced some drastic changes surrounding our Society.  European Hematology Association (EHA) emerged as a strong competitor to EAD-ISH, and we were required to consider the way ISH organizes the meeting in Europe. ISH-EHA combined Hematology Congress was held in Amsterdam in 1998. A proposal was made to restructure ISH in order to cope with new era. The Council had a hot discussion and reexamined our by-laws. World Health Organization (WHO) reviewed the collaboration and contribution of various non-governmental organizations in official relations with WHO, one of which is our Society. WHO urged us to propose three- year work plan that do not overlap with those of the International Council for Standardization in Haematology (ICSH) in order to maintain our official relationship with WHO. Dr. Miwa has played a central role in harmonizing heterogeneous views among members and has solved these problems.　He maintained an original spirit of our Society that all participating hematologists around the world have identity and independent status. He also served as President of the ICSH successfully.

Dr. Miwa was a gracious, reserved and kind person who was available to all of us for advice. He was very keen at listening to member’s opinions. Always with his charming wife, Tomoko, he traveled to attend many international meetings, where they were warmly welcomed and beloved by many friends, colleagues and students. We shall miss him deeply.

Hidehiko Saito, M.D. 
Secretary-General, Asian-Pacific Division