Education Council Update
John R. Dimar, MD
Education Council Chair
The Scoliosis Research Society Board of Directors and committee chairs recently met in Chicago on November 6, 2015. As the incoming Education Council Chair, I had the great privilege of meeting with the current committee chairs who will be leading their committees in planning the various educational activities for the upcoming year. They are an impressive group of talented physicians who have all made the commitment to lead their committees over the upcoming year with great diligence. We had a very productive session as we addressed the charges of each committees and I am pleased to provide the following updates.
1. The Awards & Scholarships Committee, chaired by Ian J. Harding, B.A., FRCS (Orth), will be initiating work on selecting next year’s international Traveling Fellows, soliciting candidates for the new Medtronic Research Fellowship along with choosing numerous awards to be given out at the Annual Meeting & Course and IMAST.
2. The CME Committee chaired by Lawrence Haber, MD and the SRS staff have successfully navigated the difficult and time consuming task of acquiring CME accreditation that will be up for review in two years. They have refined the product presentation in meetings and will soon be adding CME to all SRS activities including to the Spine Deformity journal.
3. The Education Committee, chaired by Theodore Choma, MD is coming off of the successful 50th Anniversary meeting in Minneapolis and will start planning the 2016 Annual Meeting in beautiful Prague. The committee plans to address risk stratification in the curriculum.
4. The E-Text Committee, chaired by John France, MD is currently reviewing 14 chapters and will continue to do so on a rolling schedule, reorganize the table of contents and add four to five new chapters.
5.The Global Outreach Committee, Chaired by Dr. Ferran Pellise Urquiza, plan to work on a clear GOP Road Map by establishing three or four site categories of recognition, establishing clear criteria for having GOP centers, and evaluating the feasibility of setting up SRS compatible GOP databases.
6. The IMAST Committee, co-chaired by Ronald Lehman, Jr., MD & Henry Halm, MD is starting work on next year’s meeting and encourages all members to submit papers for presentation in the traditional four-minute format and the two-minute format. Additional initiatives include soliciting regulatory government faculty for a special course in Washington, D.C.
7. The Patient Education Committee, chaired by Jonathan Phillips, MD will soon be releasing a new EOS patient brochure and will commence work on one for Sagittal Balance & Kyphosis brochure for pediatric and adult patients.
8. The Program Committee, chaired by Justin Smith, MD, PhD will be actively soliciting and reviewing papers for presentation at the Annual Meeting and initiate discussion on improving the poster experience.
9. The Safety & Value Committee, chaired by Suken Shah, MD will be addressing Risk Stratification issues with the Task Force and continue to evaluate methods to improve patient safety both in the US and internationally.
10. The Translation Committee, chaired by Munish Gupta, MD has now successfully translated the website into 12 languages and will be re-translating certain areas of the new website. SRS plans to recognize the people who did the translation by citing their names on the translated sites homepage.
11. The Website Committee, chaired by Ron El-Hawary, MD has worked diligently over the past year to revamp the website and the process continues as the various files are merged into the HTML format, add new videos and create webinars. The Board plans to commit recurring funds to ensure that website remains up to date.
12. The Worldwide Course Committee, chaired by Marinus de Kleuver, MD, PhD has had an amazingly successful year sponsoring courses worldwide by partnering with other societies to extend the SRS’s spinal deformity expertise globally.
It has been an extremely busy start to the upcoming year and it is a very exciting time for the Scoliosis Research Society. Congratulations to all of the new chairs and a heartfelt thank you to all of the outgoing chairs for your superb work. As always, a warm thanks going out to our outstanding staff at the SRS office for making all of this possible.
Happy Holidays!