A message from the SPR
President … It is my privilege to serve as your President at a time of both stability and challenge for our Society. The stability is reflected in our successful partnership with the American Pediatric Society and the Ambulatory Pediatric Association in hosting a vigorous annual scientific meeting drawing over 4000 participants to generally good reviews (even if some of you did not like the behemoth facilities in New Orleans). For those of us in pediatric research, the future looks bright with improved funding prospects at the National Institutes of Health, and a greater awareness generally of pediatric health and research issues. According to the Office of Extramural Research of the N.I.H., extramural funding from the N.I.H. to Departments of Pediatrics has risen from $94 million in 1984 to $281 million in 1997, a rate of rise outstripping the total rise in extramural funding to all Medical School Departments. Pediatric Departments now rank fifth, just below Departments of Biochemistry and Pathology, in receipt of extramural funds for research and a further acceleration of research funding is to be reasonably expected. Certainly the pace of basic discovery and then translation to clinical practice is breathtaking, and it would be hard to imagine a more exciting time to be a participant in the research endeavor - no doubt a sentiment expressed by every generation. Pediatrics is attracting its fair proportion of tomorrow's discoverers and the Society can take pride in its efforts to promote interest in pediatric research. Early follow-up from our Student Research Program, ably led by Tom Hansen since its inception, suggests we are attracting bright young graduates into academic pediatrics. The challenge to our membership is to retain the interest in our Society of the best and brightest of the young physicians and scientists as they take advantage of these new biological and fiscal opportunities. These very opportunities, along with the new realities in clinical medicine, fuel the challenge of retaining participation in the Pediatric Academic Societies' meeting and the vitality of the Society in general. The explosion in research opportunities and information has led to an inevitable fragmentation of our interests and subspecialty societies and specialty meetings are growing in strength. This growth has come at a time when we all have less time and fewer resources to commit to a number of societies and their meetings. To date, we have seemingly dodged the fate of other general societies and avoided the transition to a purely 'honorific' society with no real academic role. The survival and growth of our meeting has resulted from a willingness to work with other pediatric academic societies and interest groups in an effort to reach a broad constituency without loosing solid academic and investigative roots. Although these efforts have been successful, much more could be achieved. There are several pediatric subspecialty groups that meet unaligned with our annual meeting, or any other meeting. The Program Committee of the Pediatric Academic Societies, initiated in 1991, has integrated many groups into the fabric of our annual meeting with benefit to all and little to no loss of independence. The Secretary-Treasurer of our Society, currently Gail Demmler, deserves our admiration and thanks for so ably serving the Society in this and many other roles. The health of our meeting ultimately depends on the membership for participating in the meeting itself and for bringing forward fresh new ideas to the planning process. The Council of the Society and the Program Committee both are actively considering ways to involve a wider range of the membership in these important activities. I encourage each of the members of the Society for Pediatric Research to use your meeting as a platform for your research work and as an expression of your support for academic pediatrics and its rich traditions. |