American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine November 2017 - 3

President's Message
Taking Stock of Education, Research,
and Advocacy
As we approach the end of the year, it is natural to look ahead
to the coming year and think about renewal. A new year, new
resolutions, maybe a new perspective on an old problem-this is
a perfect time to assess our progress and focus on where we are
headed and what we need to do to reach our goals. Although we
still have a couple of months left in 2017, we are quite enthusiastic
about all that 2018 has to offer.
This is the perfect time to think about renewing your commitment
to ASRA. In 2018, we have several new and expanded benefits
that make your membership more valuable than ever, although
our membership prices will remain the same as 2017. ASRA
membership runs on a calendar basis from January through
December, so be sure to renew early so that you don't miss out
on even a moment of your benefits. If you are a fellow, be sure to
select the "Young Professional" membership, which provides you
with 3 or 4 years of membership for one low cost. This is part of
ASRA's commitment to support those new to the profession. Once
you become part of the ASRA family, we hope you will continue your
loyalty and pass those messages to physicians who follow in your
footsteps. You'll receive notification of your membership renewal
soon, so watch your mail!
You'll also want to renew your membership in order to receive your
subscription to our highly cited peer-reviewed journal, Regional
Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (RAPM ). We are thrilled to announce
that we will be increasing the frequency of publication to eight
issues in 2018, with a goal to eventually reach 12 times per year. A
steadily increasing number of submissions to RAPM, which reflects
the growing prestige that publication in the journal carries, has
resulted in an overflow of articles. Publishing more issues will help
to ensure that the articles are released in a timely fashion so that
you can put the evidence into practice as soon as possible. As the
journal's Impact Factor continues to increase, we are excited about
even more growth for this valued member benefit.
This September, the ASRA Board had a retreat that included some
time for strategic planning ideas for the coming 5 years. As a
result of that process of taking stock, we have developed a new
list of exciting projects that we plan to tackle in 2018. As the year
progresses, I'll be sharing those new projects with you in this
space.
Our ongoing goal is always to provide a wealth of practical and
evidence-based resources to our members as we all work together
to advance the science and practice of regional anesthesia to
improve patient outcomes through research, education, and
advocacy. If you read my column in August, you know that we have
implemented a simpler, streamlined process for our research grants

that enables potential researchers
to submit a one-page letter of
intent for review and approval
before preparing a full-length
research proposal. I also talked
about the Faculty Development
project that will, among other
things, improve the resources
available to members to become
effective faculty members. This
group's work is well under way
with a variety of new offerings in
the works.

Asokumar Buvanendran, MD
ASRA President

In addition to these initiatives,
ASRA is also growing our continuing medical education (CME)
meetings, including offering the Introduction to Perioperative
Point-of-Care Ultrasound Course twice in 2018 (February 24-25 in
San Diego, California, and December 1-2, in Chicago, Illinois). The
CME Committee Meeting works diligently to create a collection of
offerings based on the latest information, evidence-based practice,
and world-renowned faculty. We recently met and developed a
vision and goals for this group to ensure continued success in
meeting the needs of our members (see sidebar).
Probably the most exciting event we have planned for 2018 is our
World Congress on Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine being
held April 19-21 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. You can
read more about the event in Meeting Chair Vincent Chan's article
on page 10 and in an article by Narinder Rawal on page 13 that
features the history of this event. We bill it as "five societies and
four years in the making," because it brings together the five sister
societies in regional anesthesia and pain medicine across the globe
every 4 years, with nearly double the normal number of sessions
and activities and programming that will appeal to the global
audience. Our goal is to learn from and share with one another as
we acknowledge that ASRA does not represent the entire world in
terms of regional anesthesia and pain medicine. Providers in North
America have much to learn from our colleagues in Asia, Africa,
South America, and Europe, and we look forward to learning what
our counterparts are doing to improve patient care, wherever they
practice. To that end, we will offer a discounted registration tier for

Vision for ASRA CME:
* Be the number-one rated educational society for acute
and chronic pain globally.
* Enhance ASRA's educational offerings by involving
patients (in person or via electronic avenues) in the
development of materials.

American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
2017

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https://www.asra.com/page/1400/introduction-to-perioperative-point-of-care-ultrasound https://www.asra.com/page/1400/introduction-to-perioperative-point-of-care-ultrasound https://www.asra.com/page/1390/young-professional https://www.asra.com/page/252/2018-world-congress-on-regional-anesthesia-pain-medicine https://www.asra.com/news/159/rapm-journal-impact-factor-continues-to http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/asra/17-3/index.php http://http://

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