2009 Mid Year Meeting Friday, October 16, 2009 New Orleans, Louisiana For more information contact Nicole Bradle.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE - TOP

It is a great honor and privilege to serve as your president for 2009-2010.  We just concluded a very successful Annual Meeting in Scottsdale: “Ambulating Without Assist” with over 400 attendees.  Special thanks to Peter Glass, MD and Tom Cutter, MD for organizing a great meeting!

One of the highlights was an address by Roger Moore, MD, ASA President.  He began by declaring that “this is the best time to be an anesthesiologist!”.  I would like to add to his comment by saying that this is also the best time to be a member of SAMBA!  With over 70% of operative procedures being done on an ambulatory basis SAMBA will continue to be the “go to” source for education, research, and professional guidance for the practice of ambulatory anesthesia. 

Jeff Brand

UPDATES - TOP

SCOR Project
The committee under the leadership of Lucy Everett, MD has selected a vendor and is now working on designing the template for participants to submit outcomes data.  We previewed the project at the last ASA Annual Meeting and received valuable feedback from participants.  The data entry process will either be by fax or web based.  Beta testing will hopefully be completed this summer with the goal of formally launching the project at the ASA Meeting in October 2009.  SAMBA hopes that the database will provide useful outcome data to the specialty as well as useful quality information to participants.

Website
Revisions to the SAMBA website are nearly done!  Daniel Goulson, MD, and his committee have worked very hard to develop a website that will be user friendly and provide a resource for ongoing information on the activities of the various SAMBA committees as well as continuing many of the popular features such as clinical forum and literature reviews.  In addition, a new section featuring information for patients is under development.  I urge you to check the website often for up-to-date news of the Society’s activities.

Consensus Guidelines
Under the leadership of Girish Joshi, MD the task force has selected Perioperative Glucose Management for SAMBA’s next guideline.  The committee is in the process of research and literature review. This process is similar to the one used to produce the very successful SAMBA guideline on PONV.  A draft will be developed and presented to the membership for comment.

Ambulatory Section in Anesthesia and Analgesia
Section editor Peter Glass, MB continues to encourage submissions of articles for publication.  He particularly is appealing to residents and members who submitted abstracts and posters at the Annual Meeting to consider expanding these into articles for possible publication.  Anesthesia and Analgesia is widely read and serves as another important pathway of disseminating new developments in research and education in ambulatory anesthesia.

International Relations
SAMBA continues to expand our overseas contacts.  In July, Drs. TJ Gan, Girish Joshi, Katheryn McGoldrick, Beverly Philip, and Raafat Hannallah will take part in the IAAS Meeting in Australia while Drs. Glass and Cutter will participate in the upcoming meeting of the Chilean Society of Anesthesiology.  The Latin American Relations Committee under the leadership of Dr. Arnaldo Valedon is continuing to explore ways of increasing SAMBA’s presence in Latin America, including possibly reactivating the Spanish version of the newsletter.

These are some examples of the ongoing committee projects to benefit the membership, and I want to thank the chairs and members for all their hard work.  The coming year will be exciting as many of the ongoing projects move towards completion. In order to sustain these and further projects SAMBA needs the continued support and active involvement of its members. I’m especially requesting more involvement from those of us, like myself, who are in busy private practices. Since most ambulatory anesthesia is done in the private sector, SAMBA needs that perspective.  It’s really not that difficult to participate as nearly all the work can be done via email!  I know it’s possible as I’ve been easily able to juggle my increasing work for SAMBA with demands of private practice; please join us-we want and need your input and perspective.

SAMBA IS EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE: THE ASA AMBULATORY TRACK FOR 2009 - TOP


Refresher Course Lectures

• Current Controversies in Ambulatory Anesthesia
• OBA Challenges and Successes
• PONV and Pain
• Sleep Apnea and Morbid Obesity
• Ultrasound-guided Outpatient Regional Anesthesia
• Preoperative Assessment of the Outpatient
• Ambulatory Anesthesia: A Primer for the Occasional Practitioner
• The Geriatric Outpatient: POCD and Other Concerns
• Administrative Considerations in Ambulatory Anesthesia

Workshops

• Ophthalmic anesthesia
• Must-know Blocks for Ambulatory Anesthesia
• SAMBA Simulation Session

Luncheon Panels

• How do we optimize outcomes in ambulatory anesthesia?
• Administrative considerations in ambulatory anesthesia?

Pro-Con Sessions:

Ambulatory Point-Counterpoint

• Nitrous oxide should be completely eliminated:
• Dexmedetomidine is better than propofol sedation

New drugs in ambulatory anesthesia – do we need them? 
Fospropofol should be approved for use by endoscopists
Suggamadex should be used in ambulatory practice

Breakfast Panel:

• Translating Research In to Ambulatory Anesthesia Practice

Panels

• Regional Anesthesia in Ambulatory Practice
• What happens after the patient goes home
• Practical Pediatric Ambulatory Anesthesia
• Malignant Hyperthermia in the Outpatient Setting
• The outpatient in the outfield - considerations for offsite anesthesia
• To tube or not to tube – do we ever need an ETT?
• Ambulatory Picks from the Journals
• Cataracts and Other Eye Procedures: Issues and Controversies in Ophthalmic Anesthesia

WEBSITE OF THE MONTH - TOP

This month’s featured website is www.samhq.com the webpage for the Society for Airway Management (SAM). This is an international, multidisciplinary organization that provides a forum for those interested in clinical airway management. One of the focuses includes evaluating and formulating a pragmatic approach to the recent explosion of airway devices intended to overcome the difficult airway and simplify airway management.

The website provides a variety of links including a section devoted to Educational Resources. This section includes pertinent review articles, a “Microtextbook of Clinical Airway Management”, and a video gallery focused on intubating devices such as the Glidescope and the Shikani Optical Stylet. This section also includes multiple web links to online journals, product information, setup of a difficult airway cart and various pages aimed at the non-anesthesiologist (many are still under construction).

SAM has a newsletter, The Airway Gazette, which is periodically published with a variety of information including highlights of various SAM events and featured articles related to clinical topics. SAM’s annual meeting is usually a weekend event held in September.

FEEDBACK - TOP

Please feel free to give us your feedback about this web-site and this new section (VSMOOT@anes.umm.edu).  Furthermore, if you have a web-site that you have found to be informative for the practice of anesthesiology, please let us know. Thanks.

Victoria Smoot, MD