Victor J. Bernet, MD Secretary/Chief Operating Officer

Secretary's Update
May 2019

This just having been Memorial Day weekend I think it appropriate to start by acknowledging thanks to those men and women who served and made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country.

In the world of thyroid, May is also notable for being International Thyroid Awareness Month with World Thyroid Day being recognized globally on May 25th. The ATA and ETA have cooperated on this event for 11 years now.

On the topic of global activities, the ATA held a very successful symposia in conjunction with the Indian Thyroid Society in Taj West End, Bengaluru. We thank Drs Pearce, Zeiger, Emerson and Ehrenkranz for ably representing the ATA and for ITS President Dr. Prasanna Kumar approaching the ATA about this opportunity. We look forward to the potential of similar activities in the future.

The ATA is also holding a symposium in conjunction with the Latin American Thyroid Society on 20 June 2019 just prior to the 18th LATS Society Congress entitled: American Thyroid Association (ATA) Guidelines: From Development to Deployment. We are excited about this venture and appreciate Drs. Sosa, Fagin, Pearce, Jonklaas and Cabanillas making themselves available for their respective presentations on the program https://www.thyroid.org/wp-content/uploads/2019-satellite/ATA-satellite-symposium-agenda.pdf .

These outreach activities demonstrate the fulfillment of the ATA's strategic vision for global impact, which association leadership intends to pursue in the future.

The ATA Awards Committee capably lead by Dr. Sheue-yann Cheng has been busy this Spring. You can read more about the ATA awards on our website at https://www.thyroid.org/about-american-thyroid-association/events-awards-lectures/.

We are pleased to announce the ATA award selections for 2019:

The Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Lectureship Award – Bryan Haugen
The Paul Starr Award Lecture – Douglas Ross
The Lewis E. Braverman Distinguished Lectureship Award - Martha Zeiger
The Distinguished Service Award (DSA) - Robert Smallridge
The John B. Stanbury Thyroid Pathophysiology Medal – Sissy Jhiang
The Van Meter Awardee is revealed at the annual meeting at time of the presentation of the Van Meter lecture.

The Research Committee has been very active this Spring under the guidance of co-Chairs Drs Goldfarb and Nucera. The committee received 82 research project funding applications representing researchers 20 countries. Nineteen of the pre-proposals were invited for a full application with 7 being awarded in the following areas of study: autoimmunity (2), Thyroid hormone effect and metabolism (1), differentiated thyroid cancer (3) and medullary thyroid cancer (1). We are extremely thankful for the support of ThyCa and Bite Me Cancer for financial support for the DTC and MTC projects, respectively.

It is hard to believe we functioned without the Guidelines and Statements Committee (GSC). They remain very busy supervising and making recommendations on guidelines and statements processes from initiation thru deployment. Other initiatives include a Survey Task Force to formulate policies in regards to ATA survey requests and a new social media policy that is available for review.

Meet the Challenge! The Ridgway fund is only about $18,000.00 from meeting the metric for becoming a fully endowed fund. Three dedicated ATA members have pledged matching funds, $3000.00 each) to help meet this goal. We need another $5,000.00 to meet this matching challenge. Please consider helping honor Chip Ridgway's memory by supporting the popular E. Chester Ridgway Trainee Conference through this endowment!

The regular re-evaluation of an association's mission, vision and strategic view is considered an essential part of society governance. With the goals of our last strategic initiative having been achieved and Jacquie Jonklaas about to take over the reins as Secretary/COO later this year, the ATA leadership has scheduled a strategic meeting in Phoenix for this weekend. A diverse group of almost 50 ATA members as well as ATA office staff will congregate to formulate our next strategic initiative. We look forward to reporting back to the ATA membership on the outcomes and recommendations stemming from this important meeting.

Please note that registration for the Annual Meeting in Chicago has opened and the regular abstract submission deadline of 19 June, 2019 is quickly approaching as well. We look forward to seeing you there, if not before.

Victor J. Bernet, MD
Secretary/Chief Operating Officer