I am honored to begin my term as President of what has become not only a vibrant, growing organization but more importantly a source of education, innovation, and development of best practice in our sub-specialty. I am looking forward to working with Nina Guzzetta and Suanne Daves, our newly elected members of the Board of Directors. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Susan Nicholson and Bruce Miller who have retired from the Board. Both Susan and Bruce have been instrumental in providing the leadership necessary to make CCAS what it is today.
CCAS has grown by over 300 members since 2009. We now have 840 members of whom 209 are residents or fellows. To encourage participation at the resident/fellow level CCAS offers free membership for resident/fellow members of SPA. I encourage you to make your trainees aware of this opportunity. We have 55 international members; increasing our international membership is a high priority.
The CCAS Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 31, 2011 will, as usual, be held in conjunction with the SPA/AAP/CCAS Pediatric Anesthesiology Meeting. This marks the 5th anniversary of our Annual Meeting. As Program Directors, Anshuman Sharma and Suanne Daves have put together a fabulous program. There will be a good mix of clinical material and cutting edge science with a translational medicine approach to chronic hypoxia and hypoxic-ischemic reconditioning presented. The Audience Response System will be used again this year to facilitate audience involvement particularly during discussion of complicated case management. Jeopardy will undoubtedly be a lively affair again this year as well. There is guaranteed to be a provocative Pro/Con debate on the topic of “Extubation in the OR” with combatants Alex Mittnacht and Frank McGowan featured. We will continue the popular Disease Update Session that integrates pathological, surgical repair, and echocardiographic perspectives on a specific lesion. This year the lesion will be TOF/DORV.
Now that CCAS has established itself as a self-sustaining home for our sub-specialty, we need to direct our attention toward developing Enduring Educational Materials, Practice Guidelines, and meaningful outcomes research. The infrastructure to meet these objectives has been established. It only remains for our members to find areas of interest and contribute.
We have important working relationships with the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia, the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, and the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society. In addition, our organization has direct ties with our colleagues in Europe and we are fortunate to have Ian James and Philip Arnold as members of our Board of Directors. I will continue to nurture these relationships as they will serve to strengthen the status and influence of our organization in what is likely to be increasingly complex discussions about the care of children with congenital heart disease in our health care systems.
I invite all of our members to contact me directly with any thoughts or concerns. I look forward to serving you as President and will continue to work to make CCAS an organization that meets your needs and expectations.
