SOCCA 2017 Board of Directors Election Results

by Avery Tung, MD, FCCM
President, SOCCA

Volume 28 | Issue 2 | Summer 2017

It is with pleasure that I announce the results of the recent election for the two open SOCCA Board positions for 2017-2018. Our new Board members are James Blum, MD, FCCM and Benjamin Kohl, MD, FCCM. They will join the SOCCA Board beginning immediately.

Congratulations to Drs. Blum and Kohl! And, thank you as always for participating in SOCCA activities.

James Blum, MD, FCCM

As a member of the SOCCA board, I would like to encourage the organization to further establish its research mission and expand its presence in the critical care community. I would seek to engage SOCCA with other clinical trial organizations like the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group and SCCM Discovery and then investigate the establishment of a research group within SOCCA that would focus on the care of the perioperatively critically ill patient.

To expand SOCCA in the critical care community, I would like to engage newly graduated fellows from our programs, regardless of their base training, and bring our distinct knowledge to both nonanesthesiologists that do not practice critical care. I would facilitate this by welcoming these providers to our annual meeting and leverage our relationship with the IARS to develop workshops and/or select nonanesthesiologists speaker engagements under the SOCCA name.

Benjamin Kohl, MD, FCCM

Since joining SOCCA in 2004, my involvement in the society has become a natural extension of the work I do each day. I directed our Annual Fellowship Directors Breakfast symposium (held each year at the Annual Meeting) for many years and have been devoted to bringing the practice of critical care ultrasound to the forefront of our speciality. As a Program Director, I developed a tremendous appreciation and respect for those committed to educating our future intensivists and devoted much of my time towards centralizing and unifying our national group of ACCM program directors. I was our Society's first Chairman of the newly created SOCCA Program Director's group and created a format group and a new Committee, within SOCCA to represent all program directors. Prior to completing my role as Chairman, I led our speciality into the match which has been very successful.