Secretary's Update, August 2014

John C. Morris, M.D. ATA Secretary/ Chief Operating Officer

The entire ATA mourns the untimely passing of our former president and colleague, E. Chester (Chip) Ridgway. Dr. Ridgway, as many have stated recently, was a tremendous leader for our organization as well as a true "Triple Threat" physician, mastering research, education, and clinical practice in Endocrinology, and was also a highly effective administrator at many levels. He is and will be sorely missed by all.

Perhaps one of Chip's most important activities within ATA was to lead the effort to attract trainees to our annual meeting through the fellows' symposium that he and the University of Colorado hosted each and every year since the mid 1990's. As I wrote in the March Update, we began the process of transitioning this fellows program to ATA sponsorship during last fall's annual meeting. In honor of his contributions to this program, the Board of Directors has approved the establishment of a named annual meeting program in memory of Dr. Ridgway: "The E. Chester Ridgway Fellows Conference and Trainees Track". The board has also established the Ridgway Legacy Fund, created to honor his commitment to education, mentorship, scholarship and patient care to which you may make contributions that will be used to continue this important trainees program. We hope that you will find this as an opportunity to honor Dr. Ridgway's legacy while supporting his interest in the future of ATA. You may make your contributions through the ATA website at http://www.thyroid.org/support-thyroid-research/ or by phoning the ATA office at 703-998-8890.

A recent example of the importance and success of the trainee programing is that we welcomed 70 new trainee members to ATA in July. Thanks to chair Heather Lochnan and the membership committee for bringing these new members forward.

I wish to congratulate Bryan Haugen and members of the Thyroid Nodules and Cancer Guideline Task Force for the highly successful satellite symposium presented at the Endocrine Society meeting in June. With over 500 attendees, this was by far the most successful meeting that was not an annual meeting to date. Another highlight of the event was the launch of on-line CME offering of the meeting content. If you missed the meeting and would like to see the presentations, or wish to see them again, you may access it at http://sessions.thyroid.org/. We plan to offer similar enduring CME content for future meetings, including the annual meeting in Coronado, California this fall and hope that you will find it useful.

The Thyroid Nodules and Cancer Guidelines are nearing completion as I am writing. I anticipate that by the time you read this, you have seen them already by way of the period of membership review. Other guidelines we expect to be published later this year include the Management of Thyroid Cancer and Thyroid Nodules in Children Guidelines, a new effort, which was chaired by Gary Francis, and an update of the Medullary Thyroid Cancer Guidelines, which was chaired by Sam Wells. Congratulations to all members of these task forces for bringing these forward and completing the tasks. We have recently re-started two additional guideline efforts, both of which are renewals or updates of previous publications, the Hyperthyroidism Guidelines, which is being chaired by Doug Ross, and the Thyroid and Pregnancy Guidelines which is being co-chaired by Elizabeth Pearce and Erik Alexander.

Final preparations for the Annual Meeting at the Hotel del Coronado are being completed. Early registrations are ahead of last year's pace and the regular abstract submission volume is a record high. The scientific program that has been assembled by co-chairs Mike Tuttle and Fred Wondisford with the members of the program committee is outstanding. Thus we expect this to be a banner year for ATA – please make your plans to attend now. You won't want to miss it!

Safe Travels to southern California – see you there!

John C. Morris, MD
Secretary/Chief Operating Officer