As I write my last presidential letter, a few personal thoughts are appropriate here. I would like to begin by saying that it has been an honor to serve as the Endocrine Society’s president this past year. For me, it has been a highlight of my career and a true pleasure to work with such outstanding colleagues and highly talented staff . Th e breadth and depth of the Society’s activities create challenges that enrich one’s experience. A focus on the Society’s accomplishments over this past year highlights how truly impressive they have been. Now is clearly the appropriate time to focus on some of them.
Record-Breaking Areas
The Society’s membership exceeded 18,000 this year, attesting to the value that endocrinologists place on the excellent products and services that the Society provides to its diverse membership. Last June, we hosted the International Congress of Endocrinology in conjunction with ENDO in Chicago, which resulted in setting records in all aspects of the meeting. Coverage of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Endocrine Reviews, and Endocrinology in 2014 included 5,135 news stories from top media outlets, surpassing the record-breaking numbers from the previous year. ICE/ENDO 2014 was attended by more than 60 reporters, both on site and virtually. The Society hosted fi ve news conferences and disseminated 50 news releases during the four-day meeting.
ENDO and Educational Programs
As you know, 2015 is the first year that ENDO will be held in March and as you can imagine, this has considerably compressed the timeline for planning and coordinating the Annual Meeting. Nevertheless, the Annual Meeting Steering Committee (AMSC) chairs Mathew Ringel (overall chair), Sue Moenter (basic chair), Marc-Andre Cornier (clinical science chair), and Carol Wysham (physician-in-practice chair) working closely together with staff , have developed an outstanding scientifi c program in record time. Other educational programs include the Type 1 Diabetes Fellows Program and the new Obesity Management Workshop, which are being presented at ENDO. The Prenatal Programming and Toxicity workshop was held in Boston earlier this year. Endocrine Essentials Live, a series of five regional educational meetings, was highly popular this fall. New products launched this year include ESAP-ITE and ESAPLive, a new series of case review sessions throughout ENDO.
The Society has been involved in meetings and ongoing discussions with the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) regarding concerns about Maintenance of Certification (MOC) issues. Our voice was clearly heard. ABIM recently sent a memo indicating that ABIM’s Board of Directors and staff leadership have listened and believe that their organization must be responsive to the concerns raised by practicing physicians and medical societies. The changes largely address the concerns voiced by the Society in July and detailed in an e-mail sent on February 4 to our members.
On the patient education side, the Hormone Health Network has revisited and re-launched its Menopause Map and developed an impressive list of educational materials and programs. The Network expanded its web and social media presence, all of which has considerably increased traffic to its website. Relationships have been developed with several patient advocacy groups, which will help the Network develop more distribution channels for its resources.
Advocacy and Policy
In September, we hosted a Diabetes Policy Summit, featuring talks from key offi cials at CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases on the current clinical, economic, and political landscape and ways in which the healthcare community can innovate change to reduce the burden of diabetes in America.
This past year we established the first Clinician’s Hill Day, to complement the existing Hill Days that were focused on basic and clinical research. We influenced The National Institutes of Health and FDA policies concerning the inclusion of female subjects in all aspects of research in order to identify important sex differences. Last fall we scheduled working sessions with all the major NIH Institutes.
Our work in EDC’s has positioned the Society as a global policy leader. In addition to the spring EU Parliament meetings and EU “Hill Day,” in November the Society sponsored a briefing on EDCs for members of the European Parliament and their staff. In December, we held our first-ever media event in the EU, a Science Writers Conference on EDCs in Brussels.
International Outreach
As I mentioned in last month’s letter, our international outreach efforts have expanded considerably in recent years. The year began with the International Clinical Update program in Endocrinology (ICUE) held in February in India, which was a collaborative effort between the Endocrine Society of India (ESI), International Society of Endocrinology (ISE), the Society for Endocrinology (UK), and the Endocrine Society. Also in February, we participated in the Emirates Diabetes and Endocrine Congress (EDEC) in partnership with the Emirates Diabetes Society. The three Highlights of ENDO meetings this year, which were held in Korea, Brazil, and Argentina, were very successful. In August we had the 5th Endocrine Summit in India, and I was invited to speak at the Chinese Endocrine Society meeting as well. In October, we co-hosted the 2nd EndoBridge meeting held in conjunction with the Society of Metabolism and Endocrinology of Turkey and the European Society of Endocrinology. Several members represented the Society at the Egyptian Association of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Atherosclerosis 19th Annual Meeting in Alexandria, Egypt. We ended the year with a “Frontiers in EDCs” symposium at the Mexican Endocrine Society Congress in Merida, Mexico, in December.
Publications
A major change this past year was the transition to an enhanced publications hosting platform to provide flexibility as we adapt to new dimensions of publishing. The integration of our journal content with the Society’s website facilitates and optimizes your ability to search for needed information. Last year the Society published its first book, and this year two new books will be launching at ENDO. In order to position our publications for future growth and scientific impact, a working group has been established to review our publications strategy as a whole.
Next-Generation
As we look at the future of the field of endocrinology, we must look at opportunities to support and grow the next-generation. Our philosophy moving forward is to keep the next-generation in mind as we develop new programs and services to support our members. This issue is critical to the vibrancy of our Society and our profession in the future. Leadership development at all stages of a member’s career is and will continue to be one of the major focus areas in our horizon 3 planning model. The Trainee and Career Development Core Committee co-chairs have worked with the Next-Generation Task Force to discuss new strategies, opportunities, and enhancements that would support this group of members and is presenting its recommendations at the March Council meeting.
This is just a snapshot of the many accomplishments that we have achieved this year. I would like to thank our committee members for their time and commitment to the Society and our Council members for their thoughtful deliberations and for their dedication. I am very grateful to have served my term working closely with immediate past-president Teresa Woodruff and president-elect Lisa Fish, who have shared their wisdom and counsel throughout the year. And last but not least, the excellent Society staff who, working closely with our members, make it all happen. To them I express my sincere and deepest thanks and appreciation.
Richard J. Santen, MD
President, Endocrine Society
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