President's Messageby Avery Tung, MD, FCCM Volume 28 | Issue 2 | Summer 2017 Momentum! Were you at SOCCA’s 30th annual meeting, held last month in Washington DC? If you were, you (hopefully) came away with a strong sense of excitement and enthusiasm for the future of SOCCA. Despite clearly cramped facilities, the excellent presentations, number of interested intensivists, bustling poster sessions, and sense of possibility were sustained and full of promise. I should note that the IARS contract in DC was finalized before their merger with the AUA and us, so we should have more meeting space next year in Chicago. Meeting statistics suggest that the 2017 meeting was one of the most successful in recent history. Final attendance was 265, the highest number in the IARS era. 15 were from foreign countries, with 3 from as far away as Australia. I’d also like to note that 15 were non-member anesthesiologists and 46 were non-member residents or fellows, suggesting that our appeal outside our core audience may be growing. And why not? This year’s meeting contained excellent & novel presentations on topics ranging from coming plagues to the long term sequelae of ARDS to teaching compassion to mass casualty. Our Lifetime Achievement award winner Dr. Dorman reminded us of how much we still don’t know about critical care and our Young Investigator Award winner Dr. Rasheed suggested that outcomes after carotid endarterectomy may surpass those obtained with carotid stenting. I’d like to take a moment to congratulate Drs. Dorman and Rasheed, and thank our excellent Annual Meeting committee, Drs. Andrew Steel, Adam Evans, and Sheela Pai, for conceiving and executing such an outstanding demonstration of the energy, achievements, and potential of SOCCA members. Other metrics of SOCCA’s health are, as our residents like to say on ICU rounds, “uptrending.” Active membership has increased by >10% this past year, and our financial condition has improved sufficiently that we are setting aside a reserve and hoping someday to fund our own research awards. The number of programs participating in our fellowship Match has increased from 47 to 54 in 3 short years, and this year’s match will offer almost 50 more training slots than in 2014 for anesthesia residents interested in specialty training in critical care. All in all, it could be worse. I would like to highlight one new initiative that has come out of the IARS meeting. Part of the A&A Editor’s retreat on Sunday was focused on ways to increase the journal’s online presence. One initiative the Journal is sponsoring is “Free Article Friday”, where a recently published article is offered free for a (Fri)day. I am working with them to feature an article written by a SOCCA member, and to synergize that article three ways: with the release of this issue of the Interchange (in the “A Conversation With…” section), as a journal club on our Twitter page, and as a Free article Friday. This issue’s selection is titled “Relationship between a sepsis intervention bundle and in-hospital mortality among hospitalized patients: a retrospective analysis of real-world data” by SOCCA member Dr. David Shimabukuro, who also spoke on the same topic at our Meeting. Check out our interview with Dr. Shimabukuro in this issue of the interchange, look for it on Free article Friday (08/25) and on our Twitter page that week at @SOCCA_CritCare! And, if you are interested in contributing to or becoming more involved with A&A please do let me know ([email protected])! I am always on the lookout for interested reviewers. If (even better) you are interested in writing something, and want to bounce an idea off of somebody, I am happy to offer suggestions! In additional to the traditional research article, A&A offers review article, open mind, brief report, and special report formats. In fact, a 2016 review article on Methylene Blue (PMID 26678471) first authored by SOCCA member Dr. Leila Hosseinian, is one of the top 20 most viewed articles on the A&A website! Getting SOCCA members published is a goal of our society. As always, SOCCA is interested in new ways to leverage the boundless energy of our members. If you are interested in contributing to the above initiative, my President’s Column in the previous Interchange contains the relevant contact information. If you have an idea about how to promote SOCCA’s goals (see our webpage if you want to know what those are), the Board is all ears! |