President's Message
Peter O. Newton, MD
SRS President 2018-2019
Our society remains focused on providing you benefits of membership while advancing the care for all patients with spinal deformity. Our two major education events, IMAST and the Annual Meeting, are largely set with our next chance to share ideas and innovations in our specialty July 17-20, 2019 at IMAST in Amsterdam. If you haven’t made your plans it’s not too late. We will be in Montréal, Canada for Annual Meeting September 18-21, 2019. Anticipate a spectacular scientific program based on the more than 1700 submitted abstracts this year, as well as stunning fall colors. Please see Dr. Miyanji’s program report later in this issue.
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Inside this Issue
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Hot Topic Articles
Education Resource Committee Update
Health Policy Committee Update
Worldwide Course Committee Update
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In Memoriam
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Ethics Corner
Jochen P. Son-Hing, MD, FRCSC
Ethics & Professionalism Committee Member
How do we balance our ethical obligations to our patients and our professional conduct with our peers?
Practicing medicine ethically and interacting with our colleagues professionally often intersect. The SRS realizes this and its Standards of Professionalism document for its fellows is titled: “Ethical Practice and Professionalism.” In this scenario, we will examine a case in which protecting a patient’s best interests may also require directly questioning a colleague’s knowledge and intentions.
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Historian Corner
George H. Thompson, MD
SRS Historian
The activities of the History Committee since our last report have focused on the SRS Archives, keeping up with obituaries of our recently departed members and maintaining the Historian’s Corner.
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Health Policy Committee Update
Karl E. Rathjen, MD
Health Policy Committee Chair
June is National Scoliosis Awareness Month and is a great opportunity for SRS members to work to increase awareness about scoliosis, its prevalence and treatments. It is an opportunity to unite scoliosis patients, families, clinicians, institutions and related businesses in collaborative partnerships and grassroots networking.
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Awards & Scholarships Committee Update
Matthew E. Cunningham, MD, PhD
Awards & Scholarships Committee Chair
The members of the Awards and Scholarship Committee have had a very busy year. In the fall, the committee reviewed the applications of multiple extremely qualified North American Traveling Fellowship applicants. The top three were chosen to be the 2019 SRS travelling fellows, who will be accompanied by George Thomson, MD as the Senior Fellow on their visits of several international host sites. During the spring, we meticulously reviewed almost 120 applications for the multiple awards and scholarships that were announced in April.
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CME Committee Update
Samuel K. Cho, MD
CME Committee Chair
As the chair of the CME committee for SRS, I had the opportunity to attend the 2019 ACCME Annual Meeting in Chicago in early May. The overall theme of the conference was “Spring Forward,” and there were a number of important topics that were addressed, ranging from physician burnout to how to screen for suicidal patients, during the three-day meeting. The interactive sessions in small groups encouraged participation from the attendees and many ideas were shared among us.
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Fellowship Committee Update
Michelle S. Caird, MD
Fellowship Committee Chair
The Committee thoroughly reviews Candidate, Associate and Active applications twice a year providing their recommendations to the Board of Directors (BOD) for final approval at the September and March BOD meetings. Our Fellowship continues to grow at a gradual pace with very enthusiastic and qualified individuals. We are pleased to announce our new 2019 Fellows.
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Worldwide Course Committee Update
Benny T. Dahl, MD, PhD, DMSci
Worldwide Course Committee Chair
The three main activities for the Worldwide Course Committee are the traditional Worldwide Courses (WWC), the Current Concept in Spine Deformity Courses (CCSD) and the Spine Deformity Solutions: A Hands-On Course (SDS). This year a combined CCSD and SDS has been tried for the first time.
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Program Committee Update
Firoz Miyanji, MD, FRCSC
Program Committee Chair
This year the SRS Annual Meeting and IMAST programs once again received a record number of abstract submissions. Mirroring the past five years, there were greater than 1700 abstracts submitted for review. The abstract submission process was handled this year by the DEKON company, but we will be moving to One World Presentation Management starting in August 2019 when submission for IMAST 2020 opens – please note the change in date for IMAST submission which is now official! We are hoping for higher efficiency with One World than other programs we have used in the past.
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Education Resource Committee Update
Teresa Bas, MD, PhD
Education Resource Committee Chair
The SRS Education Resources Committee, led by Teresa Bas and Ron El Hawary, is continuing to review, revise and update the existing E-text chapters to ensure their educational integrity before incorporating them into new SRS 9 core curriculum domains. Currently the committee members have reviewed 15 existing chapters and are writing 8 new chapters to fill in gaps in the content of the current educational content.
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