The UK P&I Club’s Pre-Employment Medical Examination (PEME) Program has entered into a franchise agreement with Maritime Medical Services of Hamilton, New Jersey. Maritime Medical Services will manage the scheme across its network of 12,000 affiliated US and Canadian physicians, arranging appointments for seafarer medical examinations directly and feeding all results into the PEME Program’s central database. The PEME Program is designed to protect shipowners from claims arising from medical conditions existing prior to employment via an examination which exceeds the standards required by many flag states. In its 10 years of operation since August 1996, more than 113,000 candidate crew have been examined worldwide.