John C. Morris, M.D. ATA President

President's Update
August 2017

87th Annual Meeting

The deadline for submission of late-call abstracts has very recently passed and the program committee is busy putting the final touches on the scientific presentations that we will enjoy in Victoria in October. I hope you have already registered and reserved your housing for this great event. By all measures, it will be an historic meeting. The numbers to date indicate record attendance, record numbers of abstracts submitted and record numbers of displays and representatives from industry and thyroid-related organizations. If you have not yet registered, it is certainly not too late to do so and you can find the registration site here. Please come to Victoria and be part of this spectacle.

ATA Election
At the end of this week, September 1, you will receive by email the ballot for our 2017 ATA elections, from which our new president and board of director members will be chosen. Voting will remain open until October 10 and election results will be announced during our annual business meeting. This process is critically important to the health and success of ATA and I wish to herein remind and encourage you to look for this note and return your vote.

Perhaps at this time some of you may be asking yourselves "what does the Board of Directors do?" The duties and responsibilities of the Board of Directors (BOD) are outlined in both our bylaws and the Policies & Procedures document and they are both numerous and demanding. If you will spend a few minutes to review these documents, you will immediately recognize that the role these dedicated ATA members play is both highly visible and critically important to the function of our society.

Let me mention just a few of these duties that I believe to be the most important. The BOD, which is chaired by our Secretary/COO (currently Vic Bernet), meets by teleconference monthly and gathers for a face-to-face meeting two to three times per year, once at our annual meeting, once during the Endocrine Society annual meeting, and frequently once again for a planning and strategic retreat. During these deliberations, the strategic direction for ATA is discussed, formulated, and set in motion. ATA directors participate actively in each of the committees as board liaisons and bring the work of these groups, and thereby the work of the general membership, to the organization for approval, financial support when needed, and implementation. Directors work closely with the ATA office staff and executive director (Bobbi Smith) who enact the decisions of the committees after approval by the BOD. The BOD sets and approves the annual budget, and determines and approves the fees for membership, meeting attendance, and subscriptions. All publications, such as guidelines, white papers, and scientific statements, that include the ATA name are reviewed and finally approved by the BOD before submission.

Although I have written about this in SIGNAL previously I think it is worthwhile again stating that one of the most important and unique aspects of our BOD is that it, by definition, resembles the organization in its membership. ATA is a highly diverse organization, including members with widely disparate backgrounds in expertise, focus, training, and employment -- ranging from Endocrinologists and Pathologists to Endocrine and Head & Neck Surgeons to Nuclear Medicine Physicians and Medical Oncologists. Our election process, which I described in more detail in Signal in June, ensures that the BOD also includes this diversity in its membership. Thus the persons overseeing the organization and setting its strategic direction and function also represent our overall membership.

Three current BOD members will be completing their tenure as of our annual meeting, Jackie Jonklaas, Tony Hollenberg, and Tony Bianco (Past-President). As part of this election process, let me herein thank all of our current and former directors for their service and dedication to ATA. We will be electing three new directors, a laboratory scientist, a clinician, and a representative from a medical oncology, pediatric endocrinology, pathology, or "other" as you will see on the election guide. Historically, only 25-30% of our members participate by casting their vote, which unfortunately is similar to that of other organizations like ours. Voting is easy and quick, let's this year improve on this statistic!

John C. Morris, III, M.D.
President, American Thyroid Association