SAMBA 23RD ANNUAL MEETING - TOP

Mark Your Calendars Now to Attend the ...

SAMBA 23rd Annual Meeting
May 1-4, 2008
Loews Miami Beach Hotel
Miami Beach, Florida

Information-Packed Program Highlights:

• Preconvention Workshop
• 8 Workshops
• 5 General Sessions
• SAMBA Frontiers Lectureship
• ASA Update
• Cases From the Real World
• 2 Parallel Tracks
• Awards Presentation
• Poster Presentations
• Exhibits

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS AND RESIDENTS' TRAVEL AWARDS - TOP

The Committee on Scientific Papers has issued a call for abstracts for the 23rd Annual Meeting. The Society encourages residents in anesthesiology training programs to become more involved in SAMBA. The Society will issue a limited number of travel awards to anesthesiology residents whose scientific abstracts are accepted for presentation at the SAMBA 23rd Annual Meeting.

In addition to the Residents’ Travel Awards and White Mountain Awards, recipients of the new Excellence and Innovation Award will be given the opportunity to present their research on Sunday, May 4, 2008, during the General Session of the Annual Meeting.

The Society has improved its online abstract submission making it easier for everyone to submit abstracts for presentation at the SAMBA Annual Meeting.  To submit an abstract, click on the following link http://abstract-submit.org/SAMBA/abstract-submission.html and follow the step-by-step instructions.  Only abstracts submitted electronically through the SAMBA Web site will be considered for grading.  The deadline to electronically submit abstracts is February 1, 2008. There will be no exceptions.tation at the SAMBA Annual Meeting.  To submit an abstract, click on the following link

HYPERGLYCEMIA IN THE AMBULATORY SURGICAL PATIENT - TOP

I would like to thank all of you who were able to participate in our last journal club The New and Old in PONV.  Our next real-time broadcast will be on February 19th at 7 PM EST, the topic of discussion will be Hyperglycemia in the Ambulatory Surgical Patient. I am inviting anyone who has interest in this topic to join in on the discussion by e-mailing me at jahana@ccf.org. I will send instructions detailing the sign-in process allowing you to participate. Space is severely limited so please e-mail as soon as possible. And again, I challenge all to actively help promote our field and welcome your ideas.

Ali Jahan, MD
Editor of eNewsletter

WEBSITE OF THE MONTH - TOP

We are introducing a new section that is devoted to identifying various web-sites that may be helpful for the practice of anesthesiology. Our goal is to share certain highlights of these web-sites on a monthly basis.  If you have a favorite web page that you’ve visited, please e-mail me at VSMOOT@anes.umm.edu.

Johns Hopkins Poc-it Center: ABX Guide
Link

Introduction
As you know, the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) is a national partnership of organizations committed to decreasing surgical complications by 25% by 2010. A major goal of this initiative is to prevent surgical site infection by the timely administration of appropriate antibiotics.

The Dilemma
The anesthesiologist is frequently called upon to administer the antibiotic, but choice of antibiotic and who chooses it may be problematic for a given location where surgery is performed.

The Answer
Dr. Paul Auwaerter, an associate professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease at Johns Hopkins and Chief Medical Officer for their Point of Care Information Technology Center has developed a Web site with current recommendations.

This page includes sections on clinical issues in addition to recommendations for specific surgeries, dosing, and how to administer the drug. It provides comments on many antibiotics and recommendations for patients with allergies in table form. Many other academic institutes have similar web-pages that may or may not be accessible from the outside.  So then, when in question as to how to handle perioperative antibiotics, look on the web!

Feedback
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

BEATING JOE CAMEL: THE ASA SMOKING CESSATION INITIATIVE - TOP

The ASA has established a Smoking Cessation Initiative Task Force to encourage its members to help their patients quit smoking.  Why?  We now know that even brief perioperative abstinence from smoking may improve outcomes, and the perioperative period is an excellent chance for smokers to quit for good.  Studies show that patients want information about how smoking affects their surgery and anesthesia, and even brief advice by physicians to quit smoking increases the chance of success.  In addition, reimbursement from Medicare is now available for brief tobacco interventions.  Finally, anesthesiologists can now quickly and easily refer their patients to free, convenient, effective resources such as telephone Tobacco Quitlines that are available to help them.  The Task Force is recommending that anesthesiologists use a proven strategy that requires little experience or time – Ask, Advise, and Refer.

First, Ask all your patients if they smoke, even if you already know the answer, to demonstrate that you think their smoking is significant.  Second, Advise all your patients who smoke to stop smoking before surgery and stay off cigarettes until at least one week after surgery.  Third, Refer your patients who smoke to Tobacco Quitlines by giving them the national Quitline number (1-800-QUIT-NOW).  Quitlines provide free counseling by trained experts to all Americans.  With Tobacco Quitlines, anesthesiologists do not need to be tobacco experts, but have a place to direct patients to get expert help.  There is a new site on the ASA web-site that provides access to additional resources, including information regarding reimbursement for providing tobacco interventions: http://www.asawebapps.org/docs/SmokeCessation.htm. 

The Task Force is concluding a pilot project involving 14 anesthesiology practices throughout the country.  Members of these practices were asked to incorporate the Ask-Advise-Refer strategy into their practices, and then were surveyed for their experiences.  Based on the feedback from this pilot project, the Task Force will further refine the approach and then work to encourage its widespread adoption in anesthesiology practices.  Stay tuned for further updates!

David O. Warner, M.D., for the Smoking Cessation Initiative Task Force

NEWLETTER NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE! - TOP

The January 2008 edition of the Newsletter has not only been sent out to all members of ASA but is also available on-line.  Check out the new format and interesting articles by clicking on the following link:
http://www.sambahq.org/professional-info/newsletter/January2008.pdf  

A MESSAGE FROM THE RESIDENTS SECTION CHAIRMAN - TOP

The residency component of SAMBA is happy to announce the launching of our Resident Leadership Mentoring Program. This will aim to empower residents to seek leadership positions in national level organized medicine. Through one-on-one experience with established SAMBA leaders, this program will provide experience in career development and advantageous networking in a well established colleague forum. Interested residents are encouraged to contact Alan Bielsky, president of the SAMBA resident section, at alan-bielsky@md.northwestern.edu.