January 2020
Dear AACPD Members,
Welcome to the AACPD. I would like to review a brief history of our organization, introduce our leadership group, share our approach to planning the annual meeting, and highlight ongoing projects.
The first efforts to organize anesthesia chairs and program directors began in the 1960’s. In 1964, an organization known as the Southeastern University Department of Anesthesia Chairmen (SUDAC) held its first meeting at Emory University. The invited participants included chairmen of University departments of anesthesiology located south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River. The major topic of discussion was the poor recruitment of medical students into the field of anesthesiology compared with that for many other specialties. In the late 1960s, SUDAC leadership approached chairmen at other academic anesthesiology departments in the country, ultimately leading to formation of the Society of Academic Anesthesia Chairmen (SAAC).
In the 1980s, another group of anesthesiology departments was recognized - those with approved residency programs in a hospital not closely affiliated with a school of medicine. This resulted in formation of the Association of Anesthesiology Program Directors (AAPD), which held annual meetings jointly with SAAC. At this time, the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) required that all program directors were chairs. Functionally, the SAAC/AAPD was an organization of chairs, and a program director who was not chair could not become a member of SAAC/AAPD.
In the 1990s, the work of the core anesthesiology program director began to increase significantly because of changes in ACGME requirements and associated administrative responsibilities. Increasingly, academic chairs delegated the work of the program director to a different faculty member. The ABA no longer required the chair to be the program director.
By the mid 2000’s, approximately half of program directors were also academic chairs. Another important trend during this time was the creation of ACGME-approved fellowships in anesthesia subspecialties. These specialty program directors had no representation in SAAC/AAPD. In late 2007, SAAC/AAPD voted to restructure the organization to allow membership of all academic anesthesiology chairs, core residency program directors and eventually subspecialty program directors. In 2008, SAAC was officially restructured to become the Society of Academic Anesthesiology Associations (SAAA), an umbrella organization supporting the Association of Academic Anesthesiology Chairs (AAAC), the Association of Anesthesiology Core Program Directors (AACPD), and the Association of Anesthesiology Subspecialty Program Directors (AASPD). Finally, anesthesiology residency program directors have an official professional organization.
Current Council members include the following:
Past Presidents include Stephen Rupp (2008-2009), Ted Sanford (2009-2011), Catherine Kuhn (2011- 2013), Joy Hawkins (2013-2015), Karen Souter (2015-2016), and Manuel Pardo (2017.
SAAAPM aims to be the academic anesthesiology society that effectively represents, advocates, and educates around issues pertinent to academic anesthesiology with the purpose of enhancing academic anesthesiology education, research, and quality clinical care.
Of most relevance to AACPD members, SAAAPM would like to provide a collegial and supportive forum for the exchange of ideas and experience with a particular emphasis on the following:
The annual meeting attempts to address the following issues of interest to core program directors:
Projects have included the following:
On behalf of the AACPD Council, we welcome your suggestions for other activities we should pursue in the future.
Sincerely,
Charles A. Napolitano, MD, PhD
President, AACPD