VOLUME 33, ISSUE 1

Anesthesiology 2020, the 1st Virtual Annual Meeting for the American Society of Anesthesiologists was held online from October 2nd to 5th. There were 13,451 registrants, which was considerably higher than projected and budgeted when planning for this event and was attributed to the reduced registration fee for the CME activities in the ongoing pandemic situation.

The TSA Delegation to the ASA Annual Meeting met virtually on the evening of September 30th with activities concentrated on the discussion of the House of Delegates (HOD) Handbook reports. Drs. Scott Kercheville (Director) and Crystal Wright (Alternate Director) conducted the meeting, but the individual Reference Committees had previously been assigned for presentation to facilitate the various reports and expedite the proceedings. Assignments were as follows:

Administrative Affairs – Drs. C. Nicholas Lee & Jose M. Soliz
Professional Affairs – Drs. Amr E. Abouleish & Christopher R. Cook
Scientific Affairs – Drs. Michael R. Hicks & Stacey L. Norrell
Finance – Drs. Crystal C Wright & Austin D. Street

For those Texans in the Western Caucus, there was a meeting of the 14 component delegations on Thursday night (October 1st) before the Annual Meeting. The California Component and outgoing Western Caucus Chair, Dr. Linda Hertzberg (Director, CA) hosted it utilizing their Zoom account. Dr. Crystal Wright served as Vice-Chair and Dr. Brian Mitchell (Alt. Director, OR) served as Secretary. Due to term limit rules within the Caucus and member retirements, in addition to the usual presentations and discussions of the HOD Handbook, there was an election of a new slate of Caucus Officers. Dr. Wright was unanimously elected as Western Caucus Chair.

The Annual Meeting began formally on Friday evening, October 2nd with a welcome by Dr. Mary Dale Peterson, ASA President (TX). There was a virtual invocation by Father Pete Elizardo from the Corpus Christi Cathedral, the home parish of Dr. Peterson. What followed next was a powerful and emotional speech recounting her year of unexpected challenges and upended schedules. She stated that after all was said and done, she wouldn’t have had it any other way!

There was a featured speech by Chancellery Minister Helge Braun, “the highest-ranked serving anesthesiologist in the world” who detailed his work in the time of the pandemic as the Federal Minister of Special Affairs in the GDR (Germany). The members also heard from our highest-ranking anesthesiologist, Dr. Jerome M. Adams the U.S. Surgeon General on his work fighting Covid-19 this past year.

Dr. Peterson then convened to order the first session of the House of Delegates shortly thereafter with greater than 90% of the Delegates credentialed and “seated”. Dr. James Kelly (MO), Chair of the ASAPAC presented much of the data for the previous year’s donations to the ASAPAC. Even with a “pause” in fundraising beginning in March, the ASAPAC had another great year raising over $1 million. Texas was leading in the total dollars raised category, but the final Alabama Cup numbers were not finalized at the time of this meeting.

Accordingly, Dr. Peterson turned the meeting over to the Speaker of the House, Dr. Ronald Harter (OH), who then began the normal business of the House including the adoption the Rules of Order for the 2020 House of Delegates. Consistent with the new procedures implemented last year, many items of business were not presented at the House of Delegates but were available in the Handbook or on the Consent Calendar.

Dr. James Grant, CA/MI; Chair of the Committee on the Distinguished Service Award (DSA) submitted the name of Dr. Daniel Cole for the 2020 ASA DSA. This award will be presented next year in San Diego, California just prior to the Rovenstine Lecture (hopefully, if we are back to in-person meetings).

The following members were nominated for the election scheduled during the 2nd Session of the HOD virtually on Monday evening of October 5th: