Secretary's Update - March 2012
Spring is a busy season for ATA. This early spring has been especially active for our society in that we are in the process of updating ATA's strategic plan. Our most recent plan update was 2009 (which you can view on the ATA website) and with the recent change in the Secretary and other officers, the time seemed ripe to look more carefully at our plan and initiate an update where old items had been completed and new opportunities have appeared. This process is underway and the plan is not yet complete, but I can tell you that new strategies will center on personalization and individualization of communications and benefits, especially with respect to the multiple constituencies of our members, improvement and new activities for our meetings, continued support and growth of our already superb guidelines efforts, and further enhancements to ATA publications. As part of the information gathering for the planning process we circulated a survey to ATA members focusing on publications and your preferences regarding format, readership, and quality to which more than 290 responded! As the strategic plan is finalized over the next few weeks we will be providing you more information about its content and will post it on the ATA website for all to see and review.
The guidelines effort of ATA continues to make great progress. Most recently the Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer (ATC) guidelines task force, chaired by Bob Smallridge, posted their draft document for all ATA members to read and review. This review by all members is a new step in our guidelines development process and we are anxious to learn how well it works and how the document changes as a result. If you have not already done so, please take a few minutes to read through the draft and provide any commentary that you feel will be helpful http://www.thyroid.org/services/guidelines/index.html. In addition, the ATA Board of Directors has just received a draft of the Hypothyroidism Guidelines, which has been a joint effort between AACE and ATA, and anticipates that they will be completed and forwarded for publication within the next few days or weeks. We anticipate that these guidelines will take a place alongside the Hyperthyroidism Guidelines as the definitive clinical references towards diagnosis and management of thyroid dysfunction. Jim Hennessey and Irwin Klein have been the official ATA representatives on this task force, although many of the other members are also ATA members including task force chair Jeff Garber.
Elizabeth Pearce, Doug Forrest and their program organizing committee are hard at work on the scientific program for the 82nd Annual Meeting of the ATA, which will be in Quebec City, September 19-23, 2012. The draft that I have seen promises a wide variety of the highest quality scientific presentations with something of interest to all continuously throughout the meeting. Quebec City offers an outstanding venue for our gathering, so start your planning for the trip. You can view the Program-at-a-glance on our website.
Believe it or not planning is well underway for the October 2015 International Thyroid Congress, which ATA will host in Orlando, Florida. One of the early elements of planning for this meeting is the naming of the Program Organizing Committee, which includes members from each of the four sister societies – ATA, ETA, LATS, and AOTA. Because ATA is the host one of our members will serve as chair of the committee. Rebecca Bahn has very recently been named chair of the POC and other ATA representatives include Elizabeth Pearce, Electron Kebebew, and Antonio Bianco. After all international members are in place, the hard work of developing the program will begin.
My final paragraph is a reminder about the ATA annual fund. These additional non-dues funds are critical for ATA to continue its mission and activities towards advocacy, patient education, fellow's activities, guideline development and more. Please consider a tax-deductible donation to ATA as part of your annual giving plan http://www.thyroid.org/support/index.html.
Sincerely,
John Morris, MD
Secretary/Chief Operating Officer
