I welcome this opportunity to highlight a few of the activities of the ATA in the first part of my term. In transitioning to my role as President, I am grateful for the leadership of our Secretary/Chief Operating Officer and Board Chair Rick Kloos, the support of our Executive Director Bobbi Smith, and the guidance I have received from Past-President Terry Davies. The margin of time available to participate in activities outside of our usual work obligations seems smaller than ever, yet participation and enthusiasm from our membership for the work of the ATA remains strong. The response I received from members asked to serve on committees and task forces has been uniformly enthusiastic. Our goal is that appointments reflect the full diversity of our association, including representation from clinical practitioners, clinical and basic scientists, as well as across medical specialties. This has been especially true for the steadily increasing fraction of our members who are surgeons. The surgical task force has transitioned to committee status this year, co-chaired by Ralph Tufano and now Barry Inabnet, selected to replace Gerry Doherty who was elected to a position on the Board. The surgical affairs committee has identified and implemented programs that have been highly successful in engaging our surgeon members. This year we have looked at surgeon representation across the committees to continue to grow this segment of our membership. We have, in some cases, worked to have representation that will stimulate membership by groups not currently represented in large numbers. An example is representation by pathologists. Terry Davies initiated a pathology task force led by Sylvia Asa that made recommendations we have implemented to encourage pathologist members. Examples of other groups we would like to increase participation from are basic scientists, pediatric endocrinologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and medical oncologists. We also continue to target representation by younger and newer members. In order to continue to grow the ATA needs to engage all medical and scientific disciplines with an interest in the thyroid and thyroid diseases. Clinical guidelines developed by the ATA continue to be one of the areas of greatest impact of our association. Initiating a guideline task force is relatively easy, but completion is very difficult. We have seen the completion, or near-completion, of a number of these groups in the last few months. Rebecca Bahn and her team have just completed the guidelines on management of hyperthyroidism in collaboration with AACE. Alex Stagnaro-Green and his team are close to submitting guidelines for management of thyroid disease in pregnancy. This task force included representatives from obstetrics and nurse midwife groups, which should significantly enhance the scope and impact. We hope to have completion of the remaining guidelines in the coming year including pediatric thyroid cancer led by Gary Francis, anaplastic thyroid cancer led by Bob Smallridge, Lateral Neck Dissection surgical guidelines led by Brendan Stack, and hypothyroidism led by Jeff Garber in collaboration with AACE. We will be looking at reviewing and updating existing guidelines as well as identifying areas of need for new guidelines. The annual meeting following an international meeting year often has the highest attendance and we anticipate that the upcoming meeting in Palm Springs October 26-30 will keep this pattern. The program chairs, Martha Zeiger and Tony Hollenberg, and their committee have been hard at work and a draft of the program can be viewed on our web site. I encourage all of you to put the dates on your calendar, plan to submit abstracts for the scientific program, and bring your colleagues to an outstanding meeting. I am confident that you will enjoy the location and venue and will want to extend your visit to take in all that is available. There are a number of opportunities coming up for members to become involved in the activities of the ATA. Please take the time to nominate a colleague for an ATA award or to serve as an officer or board member. It is essential that the entire society is represented in these processes. The deadline for ATA award nominations is March 31 and the officer and board nominations are due April 30. If you would like to become involved in the ATA, please let me know and we will find a place for you to contribute. I am grateful to our officers, board, committee members, and dedicated staff, who work so hard to make the ATA successful in so many areas. Sincerely,
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