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President's Message Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists - The Old Boys' Club?
"When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die." - Eleanor Roosevelt I am honored to take the reins from Daniel Thys, MD, your Immediate Past President, to become the thirteenth President of the SCA. Though the reins may be in my grasp, one of the joys of guiding the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists over the next two years is knowing the horses drawing us forward are a combination of sleek racers and tough work horses. It is from these volunteers that the work of our Society proceeds. Your new officers this coming year are Glenn Gravlee, MD, President-Elect and James Ramsay, MD, Secretary/Treasurer. They have both shown dedication and perseverance by being active in our Society since its early days and by committing time and effort to the Society's benefit in the spirit of volunteerism. In fact, volunteerism is one of the hallmarks of our Society.
If you were lucky enough to attend our annual meeting in Vancouver this
past May, you would have been impressed by the efforts of Christina Mora
Mangano, MD, Program Committee Chair; Sol Aronson, MD, Program Committee
Vice Chair; Linda Shore-Lesserson, MD, Education Committee Chair; and
Uday Jain, MD, PhD, Education Committee Vice Chair. They performed an
outstanding job with an excellent program and the highest attendance that
we have ever had in our 23 years of existence - over 1,100 attendees!
The excellence of the Annual Meeting should not overshadow two other wonderful
meetings that the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthes-iologists sponsor
- the Cardiopulmonary Bypass Meeting every March under the direction of
Rick Hensley, MD and Christina Mora Mangano, MD. The other meeting of
course, is our Echo Meeting, which is run by Bob Savage, MD and Sol Aronson,
MD. It is from the energies of these dedicated volunteers, as well as
their hard-working committee members that insure the success of our Society.
In addition, a variety of other Society committees exist, performing such
important duties as putting out this newsletter (Al Cheung, MD), publishing
our yearly monograph (David Cook, MD), developing Bylaws (Steve Young,
MD), making our web page a great educational experience for both patients
and physicians (David Reich, MD), etc. All of these committees are run
by volunteers giving of their time and effort freely. The SCA Board of Directors is not a bunch of "good `ol boys". This expression conjures up the image of a group of overweight, cigar smoking, backroom dealing, self-perpetuators working out of the scrutiny of regular people. In truth, other than perhaps the adjective "overweight" which could apply to some of us, the other descriptions are incorrect. The SCA Board of Directors is primarily chosen from the ranks of those that have stepped forward to volunteer themselves and to expend of themselves for the good of the Society. No one is paid and no one is on salary! In addition, the Board of Directors represents a cross section of our specialty in regards to practice type, gender, and cultural background. The only unifying characteristic is the selfless donation of time and effort. In order to insure true representation of membership, the Bylaws has just been amended allowing the Nominating Committee of the SCA to put forward more than one name for elected positions. This means that for many of the board positions, there will be two or more people running for the position. This will allow the SCA membership to have a more democratic input into the selection of those who will represent them on the Board of Directors. Therefore, my challenge to you is to become involved. Step up to the plate and become part of our continuing push to make SCA the most vibrant and exciting anesthesia society in the world.
Roger A. Moore, MD |
