Advancing Children’s Health

Join us in Boston for a Very Special Joint Meeting, May 12-16, 2000

Sam Hawgood, M.D., Chair, PAS/AAP Program Committee

An expanded, eclectic, and very talented program committee (see page 5 for membership) with members from all four sponsoring societies and our affiliate societies has been hard at work since last winter assembling the format for the year 2000 meeting and the specifics of the meeting "set pieces". Any number of new challenges related to the expanded scope and significance of the special 2000 have been overcome by a shared desire to make this a truly spectacular celebration of all facets of international child health research and practice. The staffs of all four societies and an executive committee of officers from each society have immeasurably assisted the work of the program committee. Special thanks go to the hard working and often unrecognized central office staffs and the societies’ respective secretary-treasurers.

I will briefly summarize the meeting highlights. More detail, including the outstanding faculty of invited speakers and the meeting schedule, is available on our Web site at www.aps-spr.org

This year for the first time, the program committee solicited the membership for suggestions for program content. What a spectacular response! We received well over 100 well-formulated and worthy ideas covering the full spectrum from molecular genomics to public policy. This response underlines the incredible support of the membership for our meeting. The number of truly outstanding suggestions also created a challenge for the program committee as they assembled just 12 State of the Art sessions and a similar number of Topic Symposia from this rich and varied list. I know all members of the program committee appreciate the time and effort that went into every one of these suggestions and hope members who sent in ideas not on the program this year will continue to support our efforts.

We meet again in February to assemble the final program. By then, we will have the abstracts reviewed. These abstracts represent our future, and original science remains the core of our meeting. Many of you, our members, will participate in this review process. Following the direction set by previous program committees, we will work extremely hard during our February meeting to assemble the abstracts submitted into thematic groupings to stimulate cross talk between disciplines, break down barriers between sub-specialties, and create a truly multi-disciplinary meeting. Traditional sub-specialty sessions will continue alongside these thematic sessions and we again will have a mix of formats for the presentation of original science. The same teams of reviewers will review submissions from all four societies and accepted work will be presented as a seamless program of our best original science. The role of the members sponsoring abstracts cannot be overstated. As stated in our call for abstracts we look to our membership to screen the content of each and every abstract they sponsor to ensure the quality of the work will enhance our meeting. The sponsor, being closest to the actual work, is in by far the best place to carry out this function fairly. The following page notes just some of the reasons you should be planning now to join us in Boston in May 2000.

Celebrate our traditions. Each sponsoring society will have plenary sessions during the meeting with an opportunity to hear from the respective Presidents, and prestigious Award winners who have given exceptional service to the art and science of child health. There is no better opportunity to honor the past and celebrate the future of our discipline. As is fitting for the first meeting of the new millennium and a meeting in historic Boston, special programs telling and celebrating the history of child health will be presented throughout the meeting.

Original research. We anticipate assembling the largest ever program of original research in child health at the Boston meeting. Throughout the meeting, and in a variety of formats, more than 2000 original studies in all aspects of child health will be presented and discussed. By attending, you will learn where your field of interest, no matter what that may be, is going and have the opportunity of meeting many colleagues with shared interests. Original research performed by our members, their colleagues and their trainees remains the "heart and soul" of the meeting.

State of the Art science. An outstanding group of international experts have accepted invitations to discuss basic scientific breakthroughs and their application to clinical medicine in a series of plenary sessions and topic symposia. The focus of these sessions, which are spread throughout the meeting, will be on bench to bedside translations and the application of new science, from functional genomics to health services research, to clinical practice.

Education Friday. Friday will be devoted mainly to programming aimed at providing practical information on a diverse range of topics ranging from the art of scientific writing, grantsmanship, career development, efficient time use, and myriad issues in junior through senior career development. Practical Mini Courses will provide comprehensive updates and instruction on common clinical problems.

Clinical controversies. The Hot Topic sessions that close the meeting on Tuesday (yes, we know people like to leave early) will again engage the attendees in active debate over controversies existing in current clinical practice. A panel of experts has been assembled to present the state of knowledge that informs decision making in these areas. Special efforts will be made to stimulate active audience participation in the discussion period.

Public Policy. In addition to a spectacular plenary session that boasts an "all star line up" to tackle compelling issues in public policy in the new millennium, there will be many small groups meeting throughout the meeting to discuss urgent issues in advocacy and public policy. This meeting will be a very special opportunity to bring people from many societies and interests together to work on the many issues influencing our abilities to provide and extend excellence in care, training and research.

Special interest groups. A large number of workshops, special interest groups and clubs will meet during the meeting, allowing attendees to network with colleagues from the US and abroad, and engage in highly focused discussions and debates.

This is a time when many of our academic traditions and institutions are seriously threatened and our best and brightest young physicians are opting for careers outside academic medicine. Perhaps, the most compelling reason to attend this very special initiative of almost all the US societies devoted to furthering the health and well being of children is, therefore, the need to show concrete support for our societies and their common missions of discovery, excellence in care and dissemination of new knowledge. See you in Boston!