AAAC

A Message from the President

I will try to fulfill the role of President of our organization to the best of my ability. Our society owes a debt of gratitude to Peter Rock, our Immediate Past President. During his time as President, Peter worked constantly to strengthen our organization, to promote academic anesthesiology, and to enhance our advocacy efforts. I hope to maintain the standards of excellence and accomplishments of Peter and Jeff and the other past-presidents of our organization.

SAAAPM will continue to be engaged in:

  1. Working with all the membership to increase our educational expertise, support our field by improving leadership development, so that our academic future is bright.
  2. Providing feedback from our academic caucus to the ASA on matters of importance to the academic community.
  3. Working with the ASA to emphasize academic anesthesiology and the importance of research on the ASA’s website, which is being redesigned to help highlight scholarship and research.
  4. Fostering SAAAPM membership of early career investigators currently funded by a K-type or T-32 award who will be invited to become associate members of AUA.
  5. Our partnership with FAER to maintain funding for education research.

Our recent meeting in Chicago was, by all accounts, very successful. It was the most well-attended SAAAPM meeting for which we have data, with more than 550 attendees. The initial impressions of the Swissotel Chicago were very favorable. We are in the process of reviewing the feedback that attendees have provided us. Our goal is to use your feedback to improve our annual meeting program. Along those lines, please contact me directly with your suggestions for topics or speakers for next year’s program, or any other suggestions you have for how SAAAPM can be an even better resource for your department and program.

Perioperative Medicine and the future of anesthesiology has been an important issue for the SAAAPM and its members. The results of the recent election suggest there will be changes impacting insurance coverage and perhaps changes to Medicare. It is unclear whether or how these changes will impact the perioperative surgical home or the continued development of anesthesiology’s role in perioperative medicine. The SAAAPM will continue to advocate for our comprehensive role in caring for patients who are undergoing procedural and surgical care.

I look forward to serving the SAAAPM.

Jeanine P. Wiener-Kronish, MD