At the interim meeting of the “Steering Foundation” in Cordoba, Spain, May 5-9, 1970 with Salvador Castañares, Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa and Ulrich Hinderer attending, Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa was appointed to act as “Chairman” of the “Steering Foundation”, to submit, with the Secretary David Serson, the final list of members to be invited to form the nucleus of the Society, so that this could be done without further delay, prior to the Melbourne Congress of the Confederation, and to carry out further conversations with the IPRS. It was also suggested to send the amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws to John R. Lewis for final linguistic revision.

However, the decisions taken at this interim meeting were objected later on by Viñas, who expressed a lack of “quorum”, even though Dr. Castañares had the proxy of Dr. Lewis. Dr. Viñas also objected(15) that the meeting was not officially convened by the Secretary (Serson), who, however, had excused himself in a letter of April 28, 1970(19). Jose Viñas had excused himself, too, from attending when the invitation for this meeting was made in February in New York, without giving a proxy. Out of the 6 members of the “Steering Foundation”, therefore, 3 were present, with one additional proxy.

Gonzalez-Ulloa proposed that the Society should be fully established before the IPRS Congress in Melbourne. Based on a legality of the decisions of the “Steering Foundation” meeting in Cordoba, he invited Mr. Manchester and also several other Plastic Surgeons in a letter of August 8, 1970(20), to become Charter Members of the Society, and to attend a first “General Assembly” to be held in October 6, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. The invitation was signed by Dr. Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa as “Temporary Chairman on behalf of the 12 Founding Members”, requesting an answer to Dr. Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa. A booklet with the Constitution and Bylaws was enclosed to the invited persons.

The Secretary David Serson suggested that the members of the “Steering Foundation” be present at a meeting in Los Angeles, on the third of October, 1970, at the Centrum Plaza Hotel. Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa, John Lewis, Salvador Castañares, David Serson and Ulrich Hinderer attended. Taking into account the fact that several Plastic Surgeons already had been invited by Gonzalez-Ulloa to become Charter Members of the Society and to attend a “General Assembly” at which a slate of Officers was to be proposed for election, he stated that it was not advisable to postpone the meeting. In case the elections would take place, Gonzalez-Ulloa accepted to be proposed for President-Elect with John R. Lewis as President. At the “General Assembly” meeting, a group of Plastic Surgeons were admitted and officers elected.

After consulting the parliamentary procedure, posteriorly to the Los Angeles meeting, the elected President John R. Lewis, and Parliamentarian Dr. Jack Davis, as well as the members of the “Steering Foundation” agreed to declare that the Assembly in Los Angeles and the election of Members and Officers there were technically improperly constituted, so that the “Steering Foundation” had to remain in office with Dr. Serson as Secretary(21).

John Lewis also proposed not to have a meeting in Melbourne and announced holding the first official meeting in Boston. In Boston, on May 17, 1971, the Founding Members, Salvador Castañares, Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa, Ulrich Hinderer, John Lewis, David Serson Neto, Guillermo Nieto Cano, Rodolphe Meyer and Perseu Lemos (by proxy), convened and appointed Salvador Castañares as Temporary Chairman. The elected Secretary General, David Serson declared that the previous Assembly and the election of Officers as held in the city of Los Angeles in October 1970, was improperly constituted according to the present Bylaws of the Society, invalidating such election. Because of this, the previous ruling body of the Society, the “Steering Foundation”, would continue to function in all business of the Society until the new elected Officers would take charge(22).

The Temporary Chairman recommended the acceptance of the following amendments to the Bylaws in order to increase the number of Vice-Presidents to meet international needs, from 2 to 3, which was passed by unanimous vote.

The Temporary Chairman called attention for the reaffirmation of the following:

• The Name of the Society shall be, as founded at the United Nations in February 1970, “International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery”.
• To accept the present emblem of the Society which had been used up to now.
• Proper letterhead: The names of all Founding Members must appear in all letterheads and, in addition, also the names of the elected officers.

The three resolutions were passed by unanimous vote.

The Temporary Chairman asked the members of the “Steering Foundation” present in quorum as follows: Salvador Castañares, Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa, Ulrich Hinderer, David Serson Neto, John R. Lewis, to act as a “Nominating Foundation” in order to propose to the other Founding Members a list of names of the Officers to be elected by the group of Founding Members present in the city of Boston.

The “Steering Foundation” then proposed the following list of Officers(23): President, John R. Lewis; President-Elect, Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa; First Vice-President, David Serson Neto; Second Vice-President, Ulrich Hinderer; Third Vice-President, Roger Mouly; General Secretary, Simon Fredricks; Assistant Secretaries: Jose Viñas, Ernesto Caronni and Seichii Ohmori; Treasurer, Leo Bornstein; Assistant Treasurer, Rodolphe Meyer; Historian, Rodolphe Meyer; Counsellors, Hector Marino, John C. Mustarde, Guillermo Nieto Cano, Ernesto F. Malbec and Perseu Lemos. Membership Foundation: Hector Marino, Roger Mouly, Salvador Castañares, Ernesto Caronni and Seichii Ohmori.

All Founding Members were called back to the meeting, and the list of proposed new Officers was presented. The Chairman called for election of each officer starting from the lower rank. Each new officer was elected individually by vote and the entire list was approved by unanimous vote(24).

The first official candidates for membership, others than the “Founding Members”, were considered and the following Doctors were elected to membership: Michael Lewin, Darrel Shaw, Joseph Tamerin, Ralph Millard, Gordon Letterman, W.R. Lindsay, Lorenzo Mir y Mir, Seichii Ohmori, Simon Fredricks, William Lange, Claude Dufourmentel, David Matthews, Leo Bornstein, Ernesto Caronni, Jack Davis and Roger Mouly. Together with Jack Penn, who could not attend, these Plastic Surgeons constituted later on the group of “Charter Members”.

The Temporary Chairman, Dr. Castañares, relinquished all duties, resigning. Then the President, the Secretary and the other new elected Officers took charge of the Society. President Lewis appointed Jack Davis as Parliamentarian and requested Salvador Castañares to act as Parliamentarian in the absence of Jack Davis. The President, John Lewis called the Founding Members meeting ended, requesting the newly elected Secretary, Simon Fredricks, to convene the first General Meeting of the Society for May 19, 1971, at the Boston Sheraton Hotel.

On May 19, 1971(25), the General Meeting was called to order by John R. Lewis, President, who gave the statement of the purpose and a review of the past actions of the Society and transferred the records from the previous Secretary, David Serson, to the new Secretary General, Simon Fredricks. Dr. Bornstein rendered the Treasury report. The motion was passed by a majority that the Society should meet on a bi-annual basis on the odd years. It was also passed that the Society meets every four years in conjunction with the International Confederation of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. In order to initiate the activities of the Society, the first meeting was to be held in 1972, the site, as that of the meeting of 1973, to be decided by the Executive Foundation. The Secretary General was instructed by the President to notify all qualified National Plastic Societies of the formation and establishment of the “International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery” and that qualified individuals could now apply for membership. To be eligible, they should be members of a Society recognized by the International Confederation for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and must, in turn, be qualified as eligible for membership by their respective National Society. A motion was made and seconded that the official language of the Society should be English. The meeting was then adjourned.

The first Executive Foundation meeting took place on the same day(26). It was agreed that the first Scientific Congress should be in February, 1972, in Brazil, with David Serson Neto as Chairman and Perseu Lemos as Co-Chairman of the local Arrangements Foundation, and Ulrich Hinderer as Program Chairman. It was also agreed that the second meeting should be in 1973 in Israel, in April 1973, just preceding the II Asian Pacific Congress of Plastic Surgery. It was further agreed that the third meeting should be held in conjunction with the International Confederation in Paris, in September 1975.

In a letter to the membership of December 22, 1970, President Lewis expresses the willingness to work with the International Confederation with the purpose to consolidate Plastic Surgery(21) and in no way to be a “splinter group”.