president's message

Education meets opportunity at the SPA: Recent and Upcoming Events

By Shobha Malviya, MD, FAAP
SPA President
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

In a few short weeks, the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) will administer the third Pediatric Anesthesia Subspecialty Examination.  In the first two years that the exam has been offered, 2372 ABA diplomates have taken the exam and 2212 (93%) have been awarded subspecialty certification.  Eligibility criteria include completion of a one year ACGME-accredited fellowship or meeting the grandfathering criteria.  This is the last year that ABA diplomates who completed anesthesiology residency training prior to July 1, 2012 may register for and take the exam based on grandfathering criteria.

My best wishes for success to those who have registered for this upcoming examination. Preparing for an exam is stressful and time consuming for most and many of you may have spent a substantial part of the summer studying. I assure you however, that receiving the certificate makes this a worthwhile effort. Our specialty would not have received this exciting recognition without the persistent efforts of former SPA leaders.

I attended my first SPA meeting in spring 1990 in Orlando as a new faculty member. To this day, I remember my excitement and nervousness as I approached the exhibit hall clutching a large cardboard tube containing my posters.  Our society was only 3 years young and I did not envision then the tremendous strides that would be made in our field, many of them due to efforts of our members and leaders. While pediatric anesthesiology fellowships had been offered since the 1950s, it was not until 1997 that we were awarded accreditation by the ACGME with a formalized curriculum for a one year pediatric anesthesiology training program. 

There are now 171 pediatric anesthesiology fellowship positions available in 55 accredited programs.  Furthermore, pediatric anesthesiology was the first anesthesiology subspecialty to participate in a fellowship matching program via the National Resident Matching Program. Finally, several advanced second year fellowships have been proposed and implemented in an effort to meet the demand for increased expertise and clinical competence required for care of children undergoing increasingly complex procedures.   The goals of these fellowships include not only to improve the clinical care of the children we serve, but also to provide trainees with the skills to develop academically as educators, researchers and leaders in our field.  Please visit http://www.pedsanesthesia.org/general-information-on-advanced-fellowships-2/ for further information on advanced fellowships and encourage your trainees or colleagues who demonstrate leadership or academic potential to consider such opportunities.

In closing, I would like to extend a warm invitation to all of you to the SPA Annual Meeting on October 23, 2015 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. In addition to an outstanding program, we will be presenting Dr. Bill Greeley with the second SPA Lifetime Achievement Award and announcing the winner of the first SPA Young Investigator Research Grant. Please join me at the meeting to congratulate these deserving individuals in person. I look forward to seeing you in San Diego.