from the editor

Meeting Reviews, Social Media and More

By Sean Flack, MBChB, FCA
SPA News Editor

Welcome to the spring edition of SPA News. As is typical after the winter SPA-AAP meeting, the primary focus of this edition is to publish summaries of the meeting sessions. I hope these will be useful refreshers for those who attended a truly outstanding meeting, as well as helpful reviews for members who were unable to attend.

SPA-AAP Pediatric Anesthesiology 2017 in Austin was a milestone meeting for the use of social media to connect and educate both attendees as well as absent members. In the newsletter, we review the exponential growth of Twitter activity by the SPA community and I encourage members to explore the opportunities provided by Twitter to learn from, share knowledge and interact with colleagues.

Do follow the Society, @PediAnesthesia.  Under the leadership of Dr. Sean Barnes, we have plans to expand SPA’s social media presence with the introduction of ambassadors to serve as professional resources, initiate and participate in relevant social media conversations and serve as liaisons from your community to SPA online. Selection requires that you are active on social media and familiar with using social media platforms and that you are willing and able to commit to discussing pediatric anesthesia issues important to SPA online. If this interests you please complete this short application form.

I’m excited to announce that the SPA Research Committee will be contributing regularly to the newsletter. Thanks to the committee chair, Olutoyin Olutoye, MD FAAP, and Nathalia Jimenez, MD MPH for supporting and leading this effort. Dr. Jimenez has a great article in the newsletter on writing and submitting an abstract for a SPA meeting. Neels Groenewald, MD introduces us to the Society’s three 2016 Young Investigator Research Award Recipients and their investigative work that you as members are helping support.

The critical event checklists produced by the SPA Quality and Safety Committee have been updated and Dr. Clebone-Ruskin has summarized these improvements for us. Anna has also reviewed a smart device app that could be very useful for department’s wanting to collate and make information easily and immediately available to their members.

As our mission statement says, the purpose of the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia is to continually advance the safety and quality of anesthetic care, perioperative management, and alleviation of pain in children. Providing funding to support the East Africa Pediatric Anesthesia Fellow is one incredibly impactful way in which your membership fees promote the mission. I think you will enjoy reading about the 2016-17 fellow, Dr. Tsitsi Chimhundu-Sithole who practices in Zimbabwe.

I wish you all a wonderful spring and summer. I’m sure your ORs are increasingly busy but that time remains to enjoy the warming weather and to look forward to our Annual Meeting in Boston on October 20, 2017.