Fellowship Committee Update

Munish Gupta, MD
Fellowship Committee Chair

Membership Selection update:

The SRS Fellowship Committee had a busy and successful year so far. We have recommended 24 new Candidate Fellows to the Board of Directors; 14 of them outside of the United States (OUS).  Six of the 15 candidate members who were approved as Active Fellows of SRS are from OUS. These numbers reflect SRS efforts toward globalization within all aspects of our Society. We also recommended two Fast Track Candidate for Active Membership the Board. 

Senior Candidate Track:

To date, our Society has accepted 46 members through the Fast Track process since our first Fast Track member, Stephen Ondra, MD in 2009.  This past June cycle was the last cycle to accept Fast Track applications. The new path for senior doctors is the Senior Candidate Track. At the 50^th Annual Meeting, this year in Minneapolis, the membership was presented with Bylaw changes that created a permanent Senior Candidate Track application process. This track requires a more rigorous profile:

• Twenty or more years of experience in spine deformity practice
• At least 20 percent of clinical practice dedicated to spine deformity
• Full professor, head of spine unit or chief of spine division
• Minimum of 20 spine publications or a strong academic productivity
• Three abstracts submitted or one abstract accepted as a podium presentation to the Annual Meeting or IMAST. Abstract submissions must be within five years of application submission date
• Attended at least two Annual Meetings within five years of application submission date (one meeting must be the Annual Meeting & Course and the other meeting can be the IMAST or an SRS Worldwide Course).

Once all of the above requirements are met then the applicant may request a Senior Candidate Track application from the SRS office. If all applicant requirements are met and approved by the Fellowship Committee and the Board of Directors, the applicant will become a Senior Candidate Member with a two-year term working toward Active Fellowship. The candidate then enters a two year candidacy in which he/she has to attend the Annual Meetings, submit M&M, submit abstracts to the meetings and participate in the committees. The main differences between Fast Track and Senior Candidate Track is the 20 years of experience, rather than 15, no case list submission, the requirement of research productivity and a two-year candidacy rather than immediate admission.

After the Membership Information Session at the 50^th Annual Meeting, we received a high number of applications. The majority of these, OUS.

Future goals of the Fellowship Committee include continued efforts to support globalization by having more membership informational sessions at Worldwide Courses and the development of an online application process which is expected to start running in the beginning of 2016.

Two spine surgeons from India filling out membership applications at the 50^th Annual Meeting & Course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chair: Munish C. Gupta, MD Committee: Douglas C. Burton, MD; Hee Kit Wong, MD; Youssry El-Hawary, MD, Michelle Caird, MD