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Pediatric Anesthesiology 2012

President's Message

SPA has a full calendar

Hopefully everyone is now well into the summer season with sunny days, planned family vacations and very busy operating room schedules. 

We just survived the first sunny 4th of July weekend in my 18 years of living in Seattle.  Summer time in Seattle is all about the outdoors.  I am sporting very sore legs from the beautiful eight-mile hike my family and I did this last weekend.  It is days like these that I sometimes find it hard to focus on work and career, at least until I actually get into the hospital. 

There I find the children under our care a continuous source of motivation and focus.  Similarly, summer time brings the new faces of our trainees and their eagerness which is refreshing.  It is with these latter thoughts that I will plunge into the near future for our society.

We will be hosting the special 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia on Friday October 14, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago.  Wendy Binstock (Program Chair) and the Education Committee have developed a strong program looking at the past, present and future of pediatric anesthesia. 

Our keynote speaker will be Steven Shafer who will be speaking on “Pharmacogenetics: Where will this take us?”  Many of the ‘pioneers’ of the field will be there to pass on lessons learned to the future leaders of the field in a NEW small group Problem Based Learning Discussion (PBLD) round table discussions at lunch.  A sample of these pioneers include: Fritz Berry, Ryan Cook, Jack Downes, Shirley Graves, George Gregory, Al Hackel, Anne Lynn, Mark Rogers, Ted Striker, and many others. 

The day will conclude with a special 25th Anniversary Gala at the Chicago Yacht Club from 7 – 11 pm with live entertainment provided by America’s number one show band, the Voltage Brothers.  This will be a great occasion to reconnect with old friends, make new friends and celebrate the ongoing maturation of our specialty. Meeting registration and hotel reservations are open and available at: www.pedsanesthesia.org.  Early registration ends Saturday September 24th. 

Julie Niezgoda (program director) has also been working with Kurt Lalwani (workshop, refresher lectures), Genie Heitmiller (PBLDs), Nancy Glass (committee chair) and the remainder of the education committee putting together an outline for our SPA/AAP Pediatric Anesthesiology 2012 Winter Meeting which will be held on February 23-26, 2012 at the Marriott Tampa Waterside Hotel and Marina in Tampa, Florida.  Proposals for PBLDs have been opened and abstract submission will start in August.  Please mark your calendars and plan to attend.

The Society for Pediatric Anesthesia is delighted to be hosting the International Assembly of Pediatric Anesthesia (IAPA) Meeting in honor of our 25 years of service to children.  The theme for the meeting is “Safety Knows No Borders."  It will be held on Thursday and Friday October 11-12, 2012 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel at Washington D.C. 

The goal of the IAPA Meeting is to foster the development of the specialty of pediatric anesthesia around the world.  Organizations supporting this gathering include:

An organizing committee chaired by Jay Deshpande with representatives from 21 different countries and every continent have started planning for this unique two-day event.  This committee has proposed a program to facilitate attendance by international providers called the International Scholars Program.  Current and recently graduated trainees (in the first 10 years of training), from developing countries, engaged in teaching can apply for fiscal support to offset a portion of their travel-related expenses for this trip. 

We anticipate that each of the participating organizations along with many individual children’s hospitals around the world will contribute funds to this program to support at least 50 scholars.  The Society for Pediatric Anesthesia will provide free meeting registration for each international scholar.  For additional information, visit the meeting website at www.internationalassembly2012.org

A program committee representing 13 countries under the guidance of Randy Flick has started to put together the program, which will include keynote speakers, lectures, break out sessions, interactive workshops, PBLDs and abstracts.  We hope to have the program finalized this fall.  This will be a once in a lifetime experience, so make your plans early.

The society continues to advocate for children through our collaborations with the ASA Committee on Pediatric Anesthesia and the American Academy of Pediatric (AAP) Committee on Anesthesia and Pain Medicine.  The ASA Committee on Performance and Outcomes Measurement (CPOM) is currently developing a process measure for post-operative nausea and vomiting. 

Julie Niezgoda, Mark Singleton, and Steven Tosone are three SPA representatives tasked with providing suggestions for the pediatric patient population.  Similarly, the AAP committee working with Connie Houck and SPA representatives will be hosting an educational session focused on anesthesia-related neurotoxicity with our pediatric surgical colleagues at their October 2012 meeting.

The special interest group on pediatric pain medicine under the direction of Sabine Kost-Byerly and Rita Agarwal is putting together another half day educational conference that will be held in conjunction with our 2012 winter meeting in Tampa.  In addition, Steve Weisman and Ken Goldscheider are leading conversations regarding the development of a standard pediatric pain fellowship curriculum.  Please contact any of these individuals if you have recommendations or interest in any of these topics.

As you can see from the many activities noted above, SPA is continually advancing the safety and quality of anesthesia care, perioperative management and alleviating pain in children, now on a global scale.  I will close again by urging you all to volunteer to join in these worthy efforts. 

You can send in suggestions or volunteer for a committee or special interest group via e-mail to spa@societyhq.com.  I hope to see you all again in Chicago on Friday, October 14th to celebrate our first 25 years!

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