Development Committee Update

Serena S. Hu, MD
Development Committee Chair

The Scoliosis Research Society has long been aware of the strong roots that spine deformity fellowships have provided for spine surgeons worldwide.  Many have gone on to found their own spine fellowships, multiplying the impact that these training programs have had.  The Development Committee is working to memorialize the “Genealogy” of our members.  We have begun to contact our members who have spine deformity fellowships, both adult and pediatric, US and outside of the US, to help assemble lists of fellows who have completed their fellowships.  To track where fellows have gone to help other fellowships grow or start their own fellowships will help develop a “Genealogy Tree” where we can view the many instances of branching and cross fertilization in our collective experiences.  We hope that this Genealogy Tree will be of interest to the membership, rekindle relationships and also serve as a foundation for challenge grants.  We are hoping to release the Founding Fellowships home page at the Annual Meeting in Philadelphia! The Genealogy page is being designed with fundraising in mind to allow SRS members, and others listed, to donate and designate their current or past fellowship affiliation. It will have functionality to allow members to view total donations from their fellowship as well as percent participation. Thanks to Josh Pahys, our Website Committee liaison, for his critical contributions to this effort!

We continue to build our Research, Endowment and Outreach (REO) Fund to enable our Society to plan for future research grants, member activities and international outreach.  Our membership dues and meeting registration only cover about 43% of our operating expenses. While industry support has been very helpful in the past, increasing scrutiny has led to this support diminishing over recent years. Thus, to continue our mission, we need to increase our donor support from our dedicated membership.

 

Chair: Serena S. Hu Committee: John R. Dimar II, Past Chair; John P. Dormans, PPII; John A.I. Ferguson; Panagiotis G. Korovessis; Steven M. Theiss; Matthew A. Halanski (C); Antony Kallur (C); Elijiro Okada (C); David W. Polly, Jr., PPI; Kamal N. Ibrahim; Paul D. Sponseller, Chair Elect; Hilali H. Noordeen; Christopher I. Shaffrey; Justin S. Smith; Alexander R. Vaccaro III; J. Abbott Byrd III, Treasurer