2020 | Issue 1

Although it is easy to write a president’s message that concentrates on the many accomplishments of current and past members of the AUA, I have tried to focus my time, as a leader, on what we can do to improve the future. Thus, despite our distractions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, I plan to quickly facilitate an update of the AUA strategic plan, with the expectation that we will help develop a path for a healthy and sustaining future for academic anesthesiology. As we look around the country and consider the decisions being made by Deans of Schools of Medicine there is significant risk for continued erosion of academic values in anesthesiology.

It has been my pleasure to serve as the President of the Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA) over the last two years. Events of the past six months have rocked the AUA, as they have the whole world. First the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, wreaking devastation on health, healthcare, academic activities, and social structure. In its wake, it also brought massive unemployment and economic devastation.

The past few months and the past few days have been particularly difficult for our communities. The disparities in health outcomes uncovered by the Covid-19 pandemic have lifted the veil on the systemic inequities in healthcare. The recent horrific events with the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd expose the racism that are endemic in our society.

The Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA) Council is strongly committed to creating a culture within our organization with equality and inclusion as core values. We believe that each of our members’ institutions should also strive to attain a culture where all people are welcomed and equal. Black Lives Matter (BLM) is deeply interconnected with our ideals of equality and inclusion, and we wholeheartedly support the BLM movement.

Much has been written about “flattening the curve” to avoid overburdening our healthcare system. The spotlight has primarily focused on availability of hospital and ICU beds, ventilators, medications, personal protective equipment (PPE), and other material resources. There has been less focus on a different limited resource, however, which is being quickly depleted – the mental health and wellbeing of healthcare professionals (HCPs).

The EAB welcomed four new members from the AUA membership: Drs. Arna Banerjee, Teresa A Mulaikal, Kenneth Shelton and David Wlody.

Research in education is increasingly common and plays an important role in the development of our specialty. This increasing interest is principally driven by two factors: 1) a desire to establish evidence-based best practices in education; and, 2) an opportunity for clinician educators to produce scholarship as part of a promotion pathway. Despite advancements in technology, medical students and residents spend the majority of their time training to be doctors in roughly the same way as they have been for the past 100 years.

Neuroanesthesia fellowships were a topic of great interest in the early years of the Society of Neuroscience in Anesthesiology and Critical Care (SNACC). The discussion and debate about fellowships has ensued over the almost 50-year life of SNACC. Maurice Albin, a SNACC founder, wrote a seminal article on the need for neuroanesthesia fellowships in the fall 2008 SNACC newsletter which brought to attention many of the questions within the history of accreditation.

Dolores B. Njoku, MD, recently took the helm of AUA Secretary, succeeding President-Elect George Mashour, MD, PhD. Dr. Njoku has been a member of the AUA since 2008, when she began her journey toward a goal of contributing to her academic society.

If you have an idea for an article, an announcement, or an opinion on a recently published article, please submit your proposal/article to Dr. Lisa Wise-Faberowski, MD, [email protected] before Monday, August 31, 2020. If your article is selected, we will contact you for editing and formatting!