Secretary's Update, October 2014

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

This is a briefer than usual Signal message being penned just before our annual meeting. I hope to see all of you in Coronado next week and at our annual business meeting Thursday afternoon.

The final touches are being put in place for the meeting. It will be great! Preregistration numbers are an all-time high and we have sold out blocks in three hotels, including the Del Coronado headquarters hotel. Abstract numbers and exhibitors are also more than 20% greater than high of last 5 years. The program that has been prepared by Mike Tuttle, Fred Wondisford and their committee members will be truly outstanding. Needless to say this week will be crazy for all the ATA staff including our director of meetings Adonia Coates as well as Shirlyn Barger, Sharleene Cano, Kelly Hoff and of course Bobbi Smith – please thank them personally if you can catch up with them during the meeting for their terrific efforts to make this meeting the highlight of ATA's year.

I want to highlight and acknowledge the contributions of ThyCa: Thyroid Cancer Survivors, Inc., (ThyCa) one of the founding Alliance Members for Thyroid Education, chaired by Alan Farwell. Since 2003, under the leadership of Gary Bloom, ThyCa has funded 47 special research grants, totaling over $1,306,250, focused on thyroid cancer and medullary thyroid cancer. In 2014, ThyCa supported 3 new research grants and 3 renewing grants. Gary also directed Sharon Ferraro of Bite Me Cancer to bring her sponsorship through research funding to the ATA. ThyCa regularly contributes to the guidelines that the ATA has under development; and, in 2014, ThyCa gave $3,000 each to the MTC, PTC and DTC guidelines. For our part, we invited Gary to serve on our editorial board for Clinical Thyroidology for the Public as well as to share booth space whenever the ATA can be somewhere that ThyCa cannot. We look forward to their active participation in the 15th ITC in Orlando. Our appreciation goes to ThyCa for a longstanding partnership and their work offering support to thousands of patients.

We will be honoring Dr. Ridgway's tremendous contributions to ATA at the upcoming annual meeting through the newly named E. Chester Ridgway Trainee Conference. Ridgway Funds will be used to strengthen our future by supporting the educational program that brings young thyroidologists to our annual meeting. Please consider contributing to this important project.

We will be announcing a modest dues increase for next year at the business meeting. Our dues have not changed in the last two years and in order to keep up with the increasing costs of operation and with inflation the board of directors has approved a $25 increase. With this addition our dues have increased on average only 3% per year since 2011. Also, if you renew your membership early, by 12/10/14, you can avoid the increase until next year.

Safe travels to everyone … see you in California!

John C. Morris, MD
Secretary/Chief Operating Officer