President

Dr. Luis Hidalgo Grau

MD in the University of Barcelona in 1980. PhD in the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1993. General and Digestive Surgery Specialist. Residence in the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Autonomous University of Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain).
Master in Hospital Management in 2001 (University of Barcelona). Member of the Department of General and Digestive Surgery in Hospital de Mataró (Barcelona, Spain). Colorectal Surgery Unit Coordinator. DSU Coordinator of Hospital de Mataró (Barcelona, Spain).
President of ASECMA (Spanish Society for Ambulatory Surgery). Member of the General Assembly of the IAAS. Member of the Executive Committee of the Catalan Society of Surgery.

Immediate Past President

Dr Arnaldo Valedon

Arnaldo Valedon, MD is an anesthesiologist practicing day surgery and perioperative management for eighteen years. He received his education in the Unites States, (U.S.) starting with a bachelors degree in science at Cornell University in 1987 and followed by a doctorate degree in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. He continued his training in anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, with sub-specialty training in pediatric anesthesia at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.After finishing his training, Dr. Valedon has provided outpatient anesthesia services almost exclusively. He has served as medical director of two outpatient surgery centers, and as President of Summit Anesthesia and Perioperative Management since 1998. This practice was merged into First Colonies Anesthesia Associates in 2004, for which he serves as a managing partner and chief of the ambulatory surgery division.

He is a board member of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA) and the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Healthcare (AAAHC) representing ASCA. He is also a board member of AAAHC-International (Acreditas Global), and a member of the General Assembly and Executive Committee for the International Association for Ambulatory Surgery (IAAS).Dr. Valedon has been involved with the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) as part of the ambulatory surgery committee, as well as the Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia (SAMBA) as a board member, chair of the Latin-American relations committee, and co-chair of the committee on office-based anesthesia. He has been an invited speaker at multiple conferences nationally and abroad.
Dr. Valedon is the president and CEO of Knightstone Consulting Group and has been actively consulting on day surgery and perioperative management in the U.S., Central and South America, India, and the United Kingdom since 2000. 

President Elect

Marie-Louise Ulsoe

Self-employed adviser, presenter, teacher and clinic owner. Have been working in Ambulatory Surgery since 1995 and helped started Ambulatory Surgery at two hospitals in Denmark and have developed the perioperative section in two hospitals. A section which has been developed after inspiration from the Ambulatory Surgery. Has been a manager for 23 years and the last 15 years as a manager at strategic level. From 2000 until 2023.
President for the Danish Association of Ambulatory Surgery (DSDK) since 2021, have been member since 2009 and Vice President from 2016 until 2021. Member of IAAS since 2016.
Educations: EMBA Executive Master of Business Administration in Business Psychology, Pathfinder program for leaders, Pathfinder A/S Diploma in Management, Merconom education in management, Nurse education, Reflexology therapist, Board education..Teaches on the Perioperative Education in the Central Denmark Region.

Past President

Dr Carlos Magalhães

I am currently the President of the Portuguese Ambulatory Association (Associação Portuguesa de Cirurgia Ambulatória – APCA) since 2010 and my general work in surgery is related with Ambulatory Surgery, since 2005.I worked from 2005 to 2010 as General Surgeon, in the Ambulatory Surgery Unit of Hospital Geral de Santo António – Porto.Since 2011 I was invited to be the Director of the Unit of General Ambulatory Surgery of Centro Integrado de Cirurgia de Ambulatório (CICA), located in Centro Hospitalar do Porto.
CICA is one of the biggest ASU in Portugal, totally autonomous, were we perform all the ambulatory surgical acivity of Centro Hospitalar do Porto. In 2014 it were made about 15.000 surgical interventions with a medium of 300/week with general anaesthesia.

I am the responsible for the Unit of General Ambulatory Surgery, that has 5 Surgeons working mainly in the field of Ambulatory Surgery. We perform about 80 interventions/week with general and local anaesthesia, including neck sugery, abdominal wall (including Laparoscopic aproach), laparoscopic cholecystectomy and antireflux laparoscopic surgery.I participated, since 2010, in several activities of IAAS including International Congress, Meetings and General Assembly.

Vice President

Dr. Girish Joshi

Girish P. Joshi, MBBS, MD, FFARCSI is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Management at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. He is an attending anesthesiologist at the Parkland Health and Hospital System, Dallas, Texas. Dr. Joshi received his medical degree (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, M.B.B.S.) and Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) in anesthesiology from B.J. Medical College at the University of Pune, India.He received his fellowship in anesthesiology (F.F.A.R.C.S.I.) from the College of Anaesthetists, Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, and then received a M.D. degree from the University College Dublin, Ireland.

He is a diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology.
Dr. Joshi has published numerous original articles, review articles and editorial in several high impact journals. He has been an invited speaker at many National and International conferences. He is an Executive Section Editor for Anesthesia & Analgesia and a Section Editor for UpToDate. He is the Past President of Society For Ambulatory Anesthesia (SAMBA), Society of Anesthesia and Sleep Medicine (SASM), and the Texas Society of Anesthesiologists (TSA). He serves on the Board of Directors of Acreditas Global. He is a member of the Procedure Specific Pain Management (PROSPECT) Group, an international collaboration of anesthesiologists and surgeons that formulates evidence-based procedure specific pain management recommendations. In addition, the Prospect group is the Think Tank contributing to European Society of Anesthesiologists vision on perioperative medicine. 

Ex Off Treasurer

Professor Marc Coppens

Dr. Coppens is Professor in Anaesthesia at Ghent University Hospital and is the Head of the Ambulatory Surgery Unit of the University Hospital Ghent, and President of the BAAS, Belgian Association of Ambulatory Surgery. ‌

Ex Off Hon Secretary

Dr. Naresh Row

Naresh Row is a General Surgeon who founded the Indian Association of Day Surgery in 2003 and he is currently their President. He is the Director of The One Day Surgery Centre in Mumbai which is one of the first multi-specialty day surgery centres in India. He has published widely on Ambulatory Surgery including 2 books and has spoken at many National and International meetings around the world.

Dr. Xavier Falieres

Xavier Falieres was born in France. He studied general medicine and emergency medicine in France, anesthesiology in Belgium. He lives since 1993 in The Netherlands where he is working as peri-operative anesthesiologist since 2002 at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, a major teaching Hospital near Rotterdam. He is now medical director of the ambulatory care in his hospital and president of the Dutch Society for Ambulatory Care.

He is for 10 years regularly present in Myanmar to teach and to give workshops. He is lecturer at the University of Medicine 1 in Yangon.His major interests in anesthesiology are opioid free anesthesia, loco-regional anesthesia, thorax surgery, obstetrics, anesthesia in geriatric patient, Orthopedic surgery, day case surgery.

Dr. Mads Moxness

Mads Henrik Strand Moxness is the current President of the Norwegian Association of Daysurgery (NORDAF) and is a double board certified ENT and facial plastic surgeon. He attended the Norwegian military medical academy in 1988-89 and finished his medical degree in Oslo in 1996. He started out in general surgery and orthopedics and later went on to ENT and Head & Neck Surgery in 1999. He has worked as an ENT surgeon at St Olavs Hospital in Trondheim and later did his board exams in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery in London, UK. He has been a consultant surgeon at Bodø Hospital, OMNIA, Trondheim Specialist Hospital as well as Aleris Hospital in Trondheim, Tromsø and Stavanger and served as an affiliated consultant for the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. He is currently serving as a consultant at Aleris Hospital in Trondheim.

He has also an extensive career in medical research, and holds a Phd in biomechanics of the upper airways from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). In 2017 he was elected a board member of NORDAF and has now served as President since 2021. In 2024 NORDAF arranged the 15th International Congress on Ambulatory Surgery in Oslo, and he was at that time elected as an officer of the executive committee.

Nanda Kishore Manoharan

Fabricio Galvao

Lihua Yu

Joanna Correia

Leopoldo Rodriguez

Leopoldo V. Rodriguez, MD, MBA, FASA, SAMBA-F, is a board-certified anesthesiologist, healthcare executive, and internationally recognized leader in ambulatory surgery and perioperative quality improvement. He serves as Affiliate Associate Professor of Anesthesia & Perioperative Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Lancaster Medical Center and Regional Medical Director for AMSURG Anesthesia Services.


Dr. Rodriguez completed his anesthesiology residency at Vanderbilt University, where he served as Chief Resident, and earned an MBA from the University of Massachusetts. Throughout his career, he has held numerous leadership positions, including Chief of Anesthesia, Medical Director, Regional Medical Director, Assistant National Medical Director, and Executive Committee Chair.

He currently serves on the Managing Body (Board of Directors) of the International Association for Ambulatory Surgery (IAAS) and chairs the IAAS Quality of Care Assessment & Benchmarking Committee. His work focuses on developing international ambulatory surgery quality metrics, patient safety initiatives, and benchmarking programs. Dr. Rodriguez is a Past President of the Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia (SAMBA) and the Florida Society of Anesthesiologists and has held multiple leadership positions within the American Society of Anesthesiologists.


His professional interests include ambulatory anesthesia, healthcare quality measurement, perioperative safety, physician leadership, and healthcare operations.

Editor in Chief (ex officio)

Mr David Bunting

David is a Consultant in Upper Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Wall Surgery at the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in the UK. He has specialist interests in ambulatory surgery, robotic surgery and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). He is Past President of the British Association of Day Surgery (BADS) and is the Editor-in-Chief of Ambulatory Surgery, the official  Journal of the International Association of Ambulatory Surgery.

Co-Editor

Madhu Ahuja

Madhu is a Consultant Anaesthetist and Clinical Lead for Day Surgery at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. She was elected to the Council of the British Association of Day Surgery, where she served as Chair of the Editorial Committee and Website Lead. Currently she is the Co-Editor of Ambulatory Surgery, the official journal of the International Association of Ambulatory Surgery.