President's Message
Anne M. Lynn, MD
SPA President
It's high summer in Seattle with many days of blue skies, sun, and comfortable warmth (yes, it does get sunny here in July and August). Outdoors has great appeal but summer also brings busy surgery schedules - all of our usual cases plus those more elective ones done during summer school break. Having sundown occur at 9pm has its advantages. I hope you all are enjoying summer in your locale. Some areas seem very short on idyllic summer weather this year!
Our next Annual meeting is fast approaching. San Francisco will be a great venue for our first International Meeting with our Japanese counterparts. Drs. Miyasaka and Rockoff have a fine day's meeting set up at the Westin St. Francis. Topics will include fetal surgery and anesthesia; Dr. Michael Harrison will provide his expertise on surgery, Dr. Myers will present anesthesia concerns, and Dr. Uezono will update us on the Japanese approach to congenital diaphragmatic hernia. The morning will continue with a session on upper airway physiology and sleep apnea. The afternoon will present aspects of health care and anesthesiology training/practice in the two systems. We close with Dr. Sten Lindahl's unique perspective on Nobel Prizes. New for this meeting will be posters which will be on display from Thursday evening through lunch on Friday. These will include both scientific topics as well as others describing pediatric anesthesia centers in North America and Japan. The similarities and differences should be interesting and generate much discussion. I understand over 120 posters have been submitted! The evening reception at the Museum of Modern Art is a short walk from the Westin.
Remember, our need to plan this meeting several years ahead of its occurrence required SPA to undertake a contract with the Westin. This allows you to reserve rooms at the Westin for the entire ASA meeting at several dollars under the ASA's rates. Please consider using the form on the SPA website.
In the late Spring, SPA had a site visit from ACCME officials. We should hear in late November if our application for renewal of certification has been successful. My thanks to Stewart Hinckley, Bob Specht and the rest of the Ruggles group who helped put together the application. Being able to certify our meetings for CME credit saves SPA money.
Winter 2004 will bring us back to Phoenix for our meeting held in conjunction with the AAP Section on Anesthesia and Pain Management. Lynne Maxwell has organized a great program with topics to include patient safety/ a systems approach to minimize errors; unanticipated events in the OR; and managing after bad outcomes. Thursday, March 4 there will be a one day AHA certified PALS workshop available on an advanced enrollment basis to a limited number of registrants. Sunday, we will hear about international medical services, anesthetics as neurotoxins or protectants, and a discussion of the current hot topic of pediatric perioperative environment and performance-based credentialing (California experience). Workshops, PBLDs and walk-around poster discussions and the ever-popular Jeoperdy will continue, based on their good reception from past attendees. The weather in Phoenix has not let us down so reserve the dates March 4 - 7, 2004.
We will again be presenting a Saturday afternoon workshop just for pediatric anesthesia fellows, led by Jerry Lerman and Alan Tait. Encourage and support your fellows' attendance.
I want to use this note to thank those members who have written with concerns of general interest to many (or all) pediatric anesthesiologists. Our next Board of Directors meeting will include a discussion of one of these - the cessation of manufacture of Insyte catheters by Becton-Dickenson. If any members have ideas of how they hope such issues might be handled, I welcome your input/opinions/ideas. Write to spa@societyhq.com or anne.lynn@seattlechildrens.org.
Finally, I want to thank those members who have contributed to the Education and Research Fund. Over the past 12 months the fund has grown by $11,000 to its current balance of $39,761. This is a good start to building a fund that will allow us to continue our educational endeavors and could allow us to develop pediatric anesthesia materials for our members and perhaps for the ASA's Lifelong Learning Program. Remember you can make a donation (tax-deductible) to honor those who served as pediatric anesthesia mentors to you. Notification will be sent to the honorees (or their family) as well as acknowledgment to you.
See you all in San Francisco. Domo arigato.