Despite the recent tragedies and momentous world events the SPA and ASA meetings in New Orleans continued as usual. Attendance, though down, was still very good. There is an excellent review of the SPA 15th Annual Meeting in this newsletter. There are also selected reviews of ASA sessions that I and other members of the Newsletter editorial staff found interesting in both the printed and web-based newsletter (WBNL). Many thanks go to Drs. David Polaner, Anne Dickison and Jeffrey Galinkin for their contributions.
We are excited to offer a new feature for this and future newsletters. Dr. Jeffrey Galinkin will be helping to edit the Fellows Corner. We hope to have a Fellows Corner in every issue of the newsletter (either in print or in the WBNL). The intention of this new section is to give current fellows an opportunity to express their views on topics of interest to them. I hope you will all join me in encouraging the fellows at your institutions to contribute. They can contact either Dr. Jeffrey Galinkin at Galinkin@email.chop.edu or me at Agarwal.Rita@tchden.org
At the request of Dr. Peter Davis, we will start to put the minutes/reports of the SPA committee meetings in the WBNL. Hopefully at least some of you will find them interesting enough to want to participate in the committees. The committee reports will have contact information available. Since this is our first time doing this, if you have any questions please contact me or the SPA office, and we will try to steer you towards the right people. We will try to continue this in future newsletters if you find it valuable.
What is a Fulbright? The answer to this and other intriguing questions (such as where is Slovenia, what sort of anesthesia equipment do they have there?) will be answered in the WBNL. Dr. John Morrison, spent 6 months in Slovenia, practicing, teaching and involved in research after being sponsored by the Fulbright Program. There is a fascinating description of his experiences as well as a "how to become a Fulbright Scholar" in the WBNL. I encourage anyone with similar experiences, that might be of interest to the SPA membership to please let me know.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and as always I welcome comments, criticisms, suggestions and volunteers.
Rita Agarwal, MD
The Children's Hospital/ University of Colorado Health Science Center
Denver, CO
Agarwal.Rita@tchden.org
