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James Stankiewicz, MD
The ARS played a major role at the March Rhinology World 2009 meeting in Philadelphia. As one of the sponsoring organizations, the ARS membership played an important role both as attendees and faculty. The ARS paper session presented 34 outstanding papers chosen from a field of nearly 300 abstracts. Overall, it was an exciting meeting and state-of-the-art information was shared. Dr. Stil Kountakis prepared an impressive ARS program and deserves great thanks for his efforts. Stil has already completed the program for the Fall meeting in San Diego with AAO-HNS. The program is excellent and includes free papers, panels, the Kennedy Lecture by Dr. P.J. Wormald, and "How I Do It" sessions from leading ARS authorities. It will be a great opportunity to get together and see old friends in an excellent meeting city, San Diego. San Diego is the top draw city for the annual academy meeting.
Dr. Seth Brown, Fellows Committee Chair, working with our Education Committee Chair, Dr. Todd Kingdom, have organized an ARS geographic sponsored cadaver dissection course designed for fellows and residents. Our first course will be in Los Angeles. I thank our sponsors along with Drs. Dale Rice (USC Chair & former ARS President) and Bozena Wrobel (USC faculty) for letting us use the USC cadaver laboratory space for the dissection. It is hoped that this first course will act as a blueprint for other regional ARS sponsored dissection courses.
I am happy to announce that the ARS now has in place a Rhinology Study Group. The study group is directed by Dr. Tim Smith from Oregon who has put together a multicenter clinical study looking at medical therapy versus medical therapy with ESS in patients with CRS which will be prospective and controlled. Other study co-directors are Drs. Rob Kern, Rod Schlosser, and James Palmer. Once funding is approved, the study will begin. This is an effort by your society to try to answer clinically related questions with level 1 or 2 evidence using a multi-center model.
Lastly, we are continuing to strengthen our relationship with both the AAOA and the Academy. The ARS and AAOA are working together on several fronts including joint meeting sessions, common membership and funding issues, and joint journal endeavors. The ARS is working on better cooperation with AAO-HNS on common educational, research, and clinical issues. These issues include coding and payment issues and greater involvement in annual meeting planning.
With the support of the ARS Board of Directors and our membership, the ARS will continue working for all interested in Rhinology now and in the future.
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